01152663

Component

National- and state-level guidance documents conclusively state that fixed lighting improves intersection safety. The sentiment is consistent with other design and safety manuals and is supported by a series of consistent safety findings; however, most published lighting-safety research is focused on rural, stop controlled intersections and is limited by several methodological issues. The relationship between safety and intersection lighting at rural, signalized and urban locations is not as well documented. Methodological advancements in highway safety analysis justify new estimations of the safety effects of intersection lighting. This paper describes a proposed framework to estimate the safety effects of fixed lighting at a variety of intersection types and locations. Several key issues are explored including availability of relevant crash, lighting, and roadway inventory data; relevant data element structures; proposed analysis taxonomies to assess lighting-safety effects within and across different intersection classifications; specification and estimation of models to estimate expected crash frequencies during day and night; techniques to interpret model parameters, including variable elasticity; and tests of model transferability across states. A sample framework execution using Minnesota intersection data is provided. Results indicate a much lower overall safety benefit from lighting than published studies, but are consistent with estimates included in Highway Safety Manual research.

01147878

10-3386

English

18p

2010

Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting

DVD

Figures (2) ; References (36) ; Tables (3)

Crash investigation; Crash locations; Highway operations; Lighting columns; Lighting systems; Rural highways; Signalized intersections; Traffic data; Traffic safety

Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I85: Safety Devices used in Transport Infrastructure

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2010 Paper #10-3386

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 25 2010 11:42AM