Development of Safety Performance Functions for Restricted Crossing U-Turn Intersections
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146, Issue 6
Abstract
Conventional intersection designs are known to be problematic and unreliable when handling the complexity associated with the heavy traffic volume and travel demand on today’s roadways. Alternative innovative and safer designs such as the restricted crossing U-turn (RCUT) intersection can address these complex problems. However, there is still a gap in the literature concerning the safety performance analysis of RCUT intersections. Consistent with this goal, a comprehensive search was performed to identify RCUTs in the US and collect the relevant data needed to create appropriate safety performance functions and crash modification factors/functions for RCUTs. As such, different safety performance function (SPF) and crash modification factors/function (CMF) models were developed for signalized and unsignalized RCUTs with a focus on all crashes or fatal and injury crashes only, which span from complex models to relatively simple and easily implementable models. This can aid in creating a flexibility for safety agencies or officials that can prefer more complex models when sufficient data are available. Findings indicate that RCUTs have the potential to reduce the number of fatal and injury (F&I) crashes substantially at problematic locations and specifically illustrate that the selection of RCUT location depends significantly on the traffic volumes of major and minor approaches as well as their ratios. The developed SPFs and CMFs can be successfully used by transportation agencies to make informed decisions on the evaluation and justification of the installation of RCUTs.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions (e.g., anonymized data). (Crash data and R software codes to produce SPFs and CMFs with NDA agreement and the authorization of funder as indicated in the Acknowledgments).
Acknowledgments
This project was sponsored by the State of Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Grant BDV30 TWO 977-19. The authors would like to thank the FDOT Project Manager, Alan El-Urfali, and Humberto Castillero from the FDOT Traffic Engineering and Operations Office, Jeffrey Shaw from the Federal Highway Administration, Jeffrey Roberts from Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff (HNTB) Corporation, and Bastian Schroeder, Pete Jenior, and John R. Freeman from Kittelson and Associates for their valuable feedback throughout this task. The authors would like to thank Alabama DOT, Alaska DOT, California DOT, Georgia DOT, Illinois DOT, Indiana DOT, Kansas DOT, Kentucky DOT, Michigan DOT, Minnesota DOT, Mississippi DOT, Missouri DOT, New York DOT, North Carolina DOT, Ohio DOT, Oklahoma DOT, Oregon DOT, Pennsylvania DOT, South Carolina DOT, Texas DOT, Utah DOT, Virginia DOT, and Wisconsin DOT for the invaluable contributions to the study. The authors would also like to thank the devoted and motivated student Alex Ayoub, who played an active role in this task. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Florida Department of Transportation, listed state DOTs, or the US Department of Transportation.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 146 • Issue 6 • June 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 25, 2019
Accepted: Oct 18, 2019
Published online: Mar 27, 2020
Published in print: Jun 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Aug 27, 2020
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