HIGHWAY

SAFETY
INTRODUCTION
• As the number of motor vehicles and vehicle-miles of travel
increases throughout the world, the exposure of the
population to traffic crashes also increases.
• Traffic and highway engineers are continually engaged in
working to ensure that the street and highway system is
designed and operated such that highway crash rates can be
reduced.
• They also work with law-enforcement officials and educators
in a team effort to ensure that traffic laws, such as those
regarding speed limits and drinking, are enforced, and that
motorists are educated about their responsibility to drive
defensively and to understand and obey traffic regulations.
Five major safety programs

Coordinating and integrating broad-based safety programs, such as

motor carrier-, corridor-, and community-based safety activities

Identifying and investigating hazardous highway safety problems

and roadway locations and features,

Ensuring early consideration of safety in all highway construction

programs and projects.

Identifying safety needs of special user groups (such as older

drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, commercial motor
carriers, and hazardous materials carriers) in the planning, design,
construction, and operation of the highway system.

Routinely maintaining and upgrading safety hardware (including

highway–rail crossing warning devices), highway elements, and
operational features.
 Causes of
transportatio
n crashes
accidents Factors
should be involved in
referred to as transportatio
crashes n crashes.

ISSUES INVOLVED IN
TRANSPORTATION
SAFETY
Crashes or Accidents

• “Accident” is the commonly accepted word for an occurrence

involving one or more transportation vehicles in a collision
that results in property damages, injury, or death.
• The term “accident” implies a random event that occurs for no
apparent reason other than “it just happened.”
• In recent years, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration has suggested replacing the word “accident”
with the word “crash” because “crash” implies that the
collision could have been prevented or its effect minimized by
modifying driver behavior, vehicle design , roadway geometry,
or the traveling environment.
• The word “crash” is not universally-accepted terminology for
all transportation modes and is most common in the context of
highway and traffic incidents.
 What Causes Transportation Crashes?

The occurrence of a transportation crash presents a challenge to safety investigators.

In every instance, the question arises, “What sequence of events or circumstances

contributed to the incident that resulted in injury, loss of lives, or property damage?”

For example, the cause of a single car crash may be that the driver fell asleep at the wheel,
crossed the highway shoulder, and crashed into a tree.

In other cases, the answer may be complex, involving many factors that, acting together,
caused the crash to occur.

If the factors that have contributed to crash events are identified, it is then possible to
modify and improve the transportation system.

In the future, with the reduction or elimination of the crash-causing factor, a safer
transportation system is likely to result.
 Factors Involved in
Transportation Crashes

Driver or
Operator Action
The Environment
The Vehicle The Roadway
Condition Condition
Driver or Operator Action

• The major contributing cause of many crash situations is the

performance of the driver of one or both (in multiple vehicle crashes) of
the vehicles involved.
• Driver error can occur in many ways, such as inattention to the roadway
and surrounding traffic, failure to yield the right of way, and/or traffic
laws.
• These “failures” can occur as a result of unfamiliarity with roadway
conditions, traveling at high speeds, drowsiness, drinking, and using a cell
phone or other distractions within the vehicle.

The Vehicle Condition

• The mechanical condition of a vehicle can be the cause of transportation

crashes.
• Faulty brakes in heavy trucks have caused crashes. Other reasons are
failure of the electrical system, worn tires, and the location of the vehicle’s
center of gravity.
The Roadway Condition

• The condition and quality of the roadway, which includes

the pavement, shoulders, intersections, and the traffic
control system
• Highways must be designed to provide adequate sight
distance at the design speed or motorists will be unable to
take action to avoid a crash.
• Traffic signals must provide adequate decision sight
distance when the signal goes from green to red.
• Railroad grade crossings must be designed to operate
safely and thus minimize crashes between highway traffic
and rail cars.
• Highway curves must be carefully designed to
accommodate vehicles traveling at or below the design
speed of the road.
The Environment

• The physical and climatic environment surrounding a

transportation vehicle can also be a factor in the occurrence of
transportation crashes
• All transportation systems function at their best when the
weather is sunny and mild and the skies are clear.
• Weather on roads can contribute to highway crashes
• Many severe crashes have been caused by fog because vehicles
traveling at high speeds are unable to see other vehicles ahead
that may have stopped or slowed down
• Geography is another environmental cause of transportation
crashes. Mountain ranges have been the site of air crashes.
• Flooded river plains, swollen rivers, and mud slides on the
pavement have caused railroad and highway crashes.
 STRATEGIC Collecting and
Analysis of
HIGHWAY Maintaining
Crash Data
SAFETY PLANS Data

Identifying and
Conducting Determining Prioritizing
Engineering Possible Causes Hazardous
Studies of Crashes Locations and
Elements

Establishing
Implementation
Project
and Evaluation
Priorities
 SAFETY EFFECTS OF TRAFFIC CALMING STRATEGIES

Speed Humps
Speed Tables
Raised Crosswalk
Raised Intersections
Textures Pavements
Neighborhood Traffic Circles
Roundabouts
Chicanes
Neckdowns
Center-island Narrowing
Chokers
Half Or Full Closures
Diagonal Diverters
Median Barriers
Source:Malaysia Sustainable Cities Program, Working Paper Series© Akmal
Abdelfatah& Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016
Source:Malaysia Sustainable Cities Program, Working Paper Series© Akmal Abdelfatah&
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016
 Index of Accidental Road Death

The Government takes a serious view of accident statistics and to

address the issue of road safety in a holistic manner, the Government
has taken steps to adopt intervention by 5E approaches. This approach
includes education, enforcement, engineering, environmental and
assessment as follow:
 Index of deaths in Malaysia from 2011 to 2016

 Index of road accident fatalities per 10,000 registered vehicles (Death Index) is one method that
is globally accepted as a method of measuring the level of road safety for a country.
 Death Index calculation method is as follows:

 The Ministry of transport in order to measure the achievement of road safety improvement in
Malaysia, have set an element decreases Death Index as one of the Key Performance Indicator
(KPI). By the year 2014, the Ministry of transport has set a target to bring down Death Index to
2.88.
 Index of deaths in Malaysia from 2011 to 2016

Total Number Of
Years Death Registered Vehicles Index
Accumulating
2011 6,877 21,401,269 3.21
2012 6,917 22,702,221 3.05
2013 6,915 23,819,256 2.90
2.66
2014 6,674 25101192

​2015 ​6,706 ​26,301,952 ​2.55

​2016 ​7,152 ​27,613,264 ​2.59

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF
TRAFFIC FLOW
INTRODUCTION

Traffic flow theory involves the development of

mathematical relationships among the primary elements
of a traffic stream: flow, density, and speed.

These relationships help the traffic engineer in planning,

designing, and evaluating the effectiveness of
implementing traffic engineering measures on a highway
system.
APPLICATION OF TRAFFIC FLOW

• Used in design to determine adequate lane

lengths for storing left-turn vehicles on separate
left-turn lanes, the average delay at intersections
and freeway ramp merging areas
• Simulation where mathematical algorithms are
used to study the complex interrelationships that
exist among the elements of a traffic stream
• Estimate the effect of changes in traffic flow on
factors such as crashes, travel time, air pollution,
and gasoline consumption.
 Densit
y
Flow Speed

Elements of Traffic
Flow
 FLOW

 Flow (q) is the equivalent hourly rate at which vehicles pass a point on a
highway during a time period

Where,
n = the number of vehicles passing a point in the roadway in T sec
q = the equivalent hourly flow
Density
• Density (k), sometimes referred to as
concentration, is the number of vehicles
traveling over a unit length of highway at an
instant in time.
• The unit length is usually 1 kilometre (km)
thereby making vehicles per mile (veh/km) the
unit of density.
Speed

• Speed (u) is the distance traveled by a vehicle during a unit of time.

• It can be expressed in miles per hour (mi/h), kilometers per hour
(km/h), or feet per second (ft /sec).

Space mean speed, us

• vehicles passing a point on a highway during an interval of time.
• It is obtained by dividing the total distance traveled by two or more
vehicles on a section of highway by the total time required by these
vehicles to travel that distance.

Time mean speed, ut

• the arithmetic mean of the speeds of vehicles passing a point on a
highway during an interval of time.
 Space mean speed, us

The
   speed that is involved in flow density relationship. The space mean speed is
found by:

Us

Where,
us = space mean speed (ft/sec)
n = number of vehicles
ti = the time takes ith vehicle to travel across a section of higway (sec)
ui = speed of the ith vehicle (ft/sec)
l = length of section of higway (ft)
 Time mean speed, ut

 The time mean speed is found by:

Where,
n= the number of vehicles passing a point on the highway
ui = the speed of ith vehicle (ft/sec)
 Space
Time Headway
Headways
Time headway (h) is the
Space headway (d) is the
difference between the
distance between the
time the front of a vehicle
front of a vehicle and the
arrives at a point on the
front of the following
highway and the time the
vehicle and is usually
front of the next vehicle
expressed in feet
arrives at that same
point.

Time headway is usually

expressed in seconds.
 FLOW DENSITY RELATIONSHIPS

The general equation relating flow, density and space mean speed is
given as

Flow = density x space mean speed

q = kus

Each of the variables also depends on several other factors including the characteristics of the

roadway, characteristics of the vehicle, characteristics of the driver and environmental factor

such as the weather.

Space mean speed = flow x space headway
Us =qd
Where
d=(1/k) = the average time for unit distance
Density = (flow) x (travel time for unit distance)
K= qt

Where t is the average time for unit distance

Average space headway = (space mean speed) x (average time headway)

d= us.h

Average time headway = average travel time for unit distance x average
space headway

h= td