Citation

Taylor JI, Thompson HT. Transp. Res. Rec. 1977; 630: 38-43.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1977, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents a procedure to assess hazardousness at spot locations on all highway facilities except freeways and in central business districts. Indications of hazardousness included in the rating procedure are number of accidents per year, accident rate in terms of annual traffic volumes, accident severity, volume/capacity ratio, sight distance, traffic conflicts, erratic maneuvers, driver expectancy, and information-system deficiencies. A raw-data format was selected for each of these indicators, and a scaling technique was developed that permits the combination of inputs from the several indicators to produce a hazardousness rating on a scale from 0 to 100. The procedure may be used even if data on all indicators are not available for a given site (level of confidence in the results diminishes). Sixteen traffic engineers and safety experts, representing 14 states, were invited to two workshops to review the procedures formulated and to assist in establishing the weights to be assigned to each of the indicators. The general concept underlying the convergence-of-evidence procedure is highly acceptable to the safety personnel who participated in the workshops. Of special note is the development of a workable form for obtaining subjective evaluations of hazardousness in various highway situations.