The Effect of Geometric Road Conditions on Safety Performance of Abu Dhabi Road Intersections

Abstract

Abu Dhabi’s government has taken several initiatives to improve the safety of the city’s highways, such as reducing traffic accident occurrence, red light violations, and property damage associated with traffic accidents. However, the intersections are still associated with many severe accidents, property damage associated with accidents, and red light violations. To help authorities pinpoint the major contributors to the deterioration of the safety performance of the signalized junctions, this study employed a negative binomial regression model to investigate the effect of geometric road conditions (in terms of the number of lanes of streets found in four-leg, three-leg, and different types of intersection) on property damage, red light violations, and severe accidents as safety performance indicators. The research found that, in both three-leg and four-leg intersections, most accidents and traffic light violations occur when minor streets pass through the intersection. This can be solved by converting these minor streets into major streets by increasing the number of lanes. This way, the capability of the minor street’s handling of increased traffic from the major streets significantly increases. The results also show that traffic speed is a major contributor to safety performance deterioration in these intersections. This can be solved by posting speed limits at these intersections. Results have also shown that, in Direction 1, when the main street passes through the intersection, the property damage type of accident is significantly high. This may be due to the presence of a potentially hazardous property or road design flaws on that side of the road. This effect needs further investigation to determine the hazardous property or the road design flaws causing these accidents.

Road Accident Hotspots on Jordan’s Highway Based on Geometric Designs Using Structural Equation Modeling

“…Alghafli et al [61] conducted a study with the aim of examining how conditions of geometric roads affect safety performance indicators, including severe accidents and property damage. The researchers utilized a negative binomial regression model in order to attain this objective.…”

“…In Abu Dhabi, Alghafli at al. [61] carried out a study using a negative binomial regression model. The study aimed to identify the influence of geometric design conditions, such as the number of lanes in three-leg, four-leg, and other intersection types, on severe accidents, red light violations, safety performance indicators, and property damage.…”

“…Intersections on single-level highways are among the most hazardous locations for vehicle accidents Alghafli at al. [61]. From the traffic accident database of Harbin, 1758 valid intersection accident samples and nine categories of features were taken in order to study the spatial distribution patterns of traffic accidents at urban road intersections and identify the critical factors affecting the severity of accidents.…”

Accident Frequency Prediction Model for Flat Rural Roads in Serbia

“…Traffic volume is the most commonly used independent variable for accident frequency modeling. Studies have shown that accidents increase with the increase in the annual average daily traffic (AADT) [19,32,34,35] or the average daily traffic (ADT) [36,37]. Conversely, Milton and Mannering [38] determined that an increase in traffic volume during peak hours reduces accident frequency (due to traffic congestion).…”

Impact of highway design on traffic safety: How geometric elements affect accident risk

“…The study also examines the relationship between horizontal curves on highways and road user safety and concludes that factors such as curve radius, superelevation, extra widening, and sight distance have a significant impact on road accidents. The study also looks at other factors such as traffic volume, geometric parameters of the curve, cross-section profile of the road, roadside hazards, visibility distance, curve direction, road friction, and traffic control devices, all of which had an importance on the safety performance at horizontal curves (Zhang, 2009;Islam et al, 2019;Alghafli et al, 2021). Generally, these road geometry factors affect the safety performance of highways (AlKheder et al, 2022).…”