Impact of Pavement Surface Condition on Roadway Departure Crash Risk in Iowa

Abstract

Safety performance is a crucial component of highway network performance evaluation. Besides their devastating impact on roadway users, traffic crashes lead to substantial economic losses on both personal and societal levels. Due to the complexity of crash events and the unique conditions in each country and state, empirical local calibration for the correlation between attributes of interest and the safety performance is always recommended. Limited studies have established a procedure to analyze the impact of pavement condition on traffic safety in a risk analysis scheme. This study presents a thorough analysis of some roadway departure crashes which occurred in Iowa between 2006 and 2016. All crash records were mapped onto one-mile segments with known traffic volume (i.e., AADT), posted speed limits (SL), skid numbers (SN), ride qualities (IRI), and rut depths (RD) in a geographic information system (GIS) database. The crash records were correlated to the pavement surface condition (i.e., SN, IRI, and RD) using negative binomial regression models. Moreover, a novel risk analysis framework is introduced to perform crash risk assessment and evaluate the possible consequences for a given combination of events. The analysis shows a significant impact of pavement skid resistance on roadway-departure crashes under all accident conditions and severities. Risk analysis will facilitate coordination between the pavement management system and safety management system in the future, which will help with optimizing the overall highway network performance.Several studies have investigated the relationship between pavement surface friction and crash risk, and could quantify significant correlations between them. However, these correlations can be delusive and challenging to derive due to the highly varied and uncontrolled conditions during a crash event [7,8]. One of the most extensive efforts in this research area is the National Corporative Research Program (NCHRP) project 01-43 "Guide for Pavement Friction". The project report was published in 2010 [9]. In the report, quantitative correlations between wet crash rates and pavement friction values could be found in more than 15 studies in the literature. The study focused on describing and illustrating the importance of friction in highway safety, as well as the principles of pavement friction characterization. Furthermore, the study presented valuable information on (a) the management of friction on existing highway pavements, and (b) the design of new highway surfaces with adequate friction. This information focuses on techniques for monitoring friction and crashes, and determining the need for remedial action. However, two components, friction and safety management, are still disconnected and not synchronized efficiently.Pavement friction develops between the tire and the pavement due to the hysteresis and adhesion mechanisms at the tire-pavement interface [9,10]. The two mechanisms, strongly depend on the contact surface area between the tire and the pavement surface, wh...

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“…In more detail, the study results show that the leading causes of these crashes are related to human error (i.e., speeding, drink-driving, inattentive driving behavior, lacking skill for using ADAS), environmental problem (i.e., lack of horizontal curve warning systems, travel lanes are too narrow, substandard curve) and vehicle issue (i.e., vehicles in the crash is without ADAS, or it equipped with the ADAS; however, it is turned off by the driver or work improperly). These findings can be supported by previous studies on the causes of the roadway departure crash [4,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. These studies revealed the causes leading to the roadway departure crash are human errors (i.e., distracted drivers, drowsy drivers, speeding, aggressive driving, driver error, high mental workload, fatigue, inattention, traveling too fast through a curve, alcohol / drug involvement, young / novice drivers, driver condition (e.g., inattentive, distracted, illness / fatigued / asleep)) and environmental problem (i.e., cloudy weather conditions, standing water on the roadway, travel lanes that are too narrow, substandard curves, bad pavement condition, improper shoulder width, improper lateral clearance, improper side slope condition, and construction zones).…”

A Novel 0.1 mm 3D Laser Imaging Technology for Pavement Safety Measurement

“…Particularly, pavement texture, friction, and hydroplaning are the three main aspects when engineers performing pavement safety evaluations. Many studies have indicated that poor pavement safety conditions coincided with more traffic crashes and higher severity of traffic accidents [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Notably, pavement friction and texture have been recognized as critical surface characteristics to roadway safety in many studies: the number and severity of traffic crashes increase when roadway sections have low friction numbers or texture depth [ 11 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ].…”

“…Many studies have indicated that poor pavement safety conditions coincided with more traffic crashes and higher severity of traffic accidents [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Notably, pavement friction and texture have been recognized as critical surface characteristics to roadway safety in many studies: the number and severity of traffic crashes increase when roadway sections have low friction numbers or texture depth [ 11 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Therefore, transportation agencies have applied various devices or methods to monitor pavement friction and texture conditions as part of their asset management to reduce highway fatalities and injuries.…”

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