1. Improving the safety of road users remains a top priority of transport and safety planners.
1. Improving the safety of road users remains a top priority of transport and safety planners.
Why this study? Several states conducted studies to evaluate the safety benefit of shoulder rumble strips and found that it effective. A need exists to study how road geometry affects driving, and how effective rumble strips are at reducing ROR crashes caused by driver error.
Data Road curvature data was obtained from two sources: satellite images from Google Earth and speed advisory signs from Idaho Trans. Dept. sign inventory database. Control sites were randomly selected from the same three US highways.
SPF Development The SPF developed for the study using the control site data is assumed to follow an NB regression model. Generalized linear model methods were used to perform the regression analyses, using with a log link function.
Variables The explanatory variables considered for the model are AADT, length of road segment, right shoulder width, road curvature type, and year.
Results Installation of rumble strips resulted an overall improvement in the reduction of ROR crashes, but variability is there. May be due to unobserved factors including environmental factors (such as light condition, weather condition, and pavement condition), and driver specific factors. The EB estimated index of effectiveness shows that shoulder rumble strips were the most effective in reducing ROR crashes in low-volume road sections. The effectiveness of this treatment for severe crashes (such as fatal and/or incapacitating crashes) could not be investigated explicitly because of the smaller sample size of severe crashes during the analyzing periods in the control and test sections.
Limitation The effectiveness of this treatment for severe crashes (such as fatal and/or incapacitating crashes) could not be investigated explicitly because of the smaller sample size of severe crashes during the analyzing periods in the control and test sections..
Mubassira Khan, Ahmed Abdel-Rahim, Christopher J. Williams. Potential crash reduction benefits of shoulder rumble strips in two- lane rural highways. AAAP. Volume 75, 2015, pp. 35–42.
March 30, 2015
Why this review paper? This one is the update of a previous paper. The papers listed here are hyperlinked which will help the researchers a lot. Another important one on severity analysis.