Citation

Shannon P, Stanley A. Transp. Res. Rec. 1978; 685: 20-23.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1978, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This study was undertaken to analyze local data and to obtain relationships among pavement width, construction and maintenance costs, and accident costs for rural two-lane highways. The investigation included two major phases: first, a statistical analysis of accident records to investigate the effects of width and other factors and, second, using accident trends determined from the first part of the study, economic analyses to evaluate the overall economic effects of different pavement widths in various average daily traffic ranges. The results of the first phase indicated a tendency for accident rates to decrease with increased pavement width. In the second phase, the cost of wider pavement was compared with the cost savings resulting from accident reduction associated with wider pavement. Using the results of these comparison, a table of suggested minimum paved widths was prepared. Because the analysis is relatively sensitive to injury or fatality accident cost, the suggested minimum should be reevaluated if the average cost of such accidents increases significantly, or if accident trends change significantly.