In-Service Performance Evaluation of Longitudinal Barrier to Study Occupant Risk

Roadside safety features generally demonstrate successful performance through crash testing, which provides an assessment of occupant risk, post-impact trajectory, and structural adequacy. It has been long recognized that the performance of safety features cannot be assessed by crash testing alone and should be followed by in-service performance evaluations (ISPEs). The primary objective of any ISPE is to evaluate occupant risk under real-world field conditions. A secondary objective may be to determine which factors influence performance (e.g., maintenance, installation, hardware design, etc.). This paper assembled available data from both the literature and the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee to demonstrate the various data sources readily available to answer the primary ISPE question of occupant risk. While much more can be done with the data available from each of these states, this paper is limited to a review of occupant risk. This paper has shown that there is a very large amount of data very easily accessible for an ISPE. While some states maintain an inventory of safety features, some do not, and additional information was needed to identify the feature and proceed with the evaluation.