More US teens die from traffic crashes than from any other cause, with speed and rural roads major contributing factors. This study aimed to validate a high-fidelity simulator to explore these risks in an injury-free environment. Twenty-one newly-licensed 16-year-old males completed simulated and on-the-road drives of the same rural roads. Average free speeds on three road segments showed no sy...

Many studies have examined the impact of factors affecting accident severity in rural areas; however, little attention has been paid to different lighting conditions (LCs), and less detailed categories precise determining twilight. In this paper, solar altitude angle (SAA), as a basis for differentiating categorizing LCs, is proposed investigate explanatory variables much greater detail. For ea...

• New SPF functional form proposed that allows traffic volume to have different elasticities in ranges. Proposed for continuous relationship between predicted crash frequency and volume. models shown better fit observed data traditional other forms. Statistical of expected are referred as Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) the first edition American Association State Highway Transportation Off...

The objectives of this manuscript are (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of on-street bicycle lane in reducing crashes involving bicyclists on urban roads, (2) to quantify and compare risk to bicyclists on road segments with and without on-street bicycle lane, (3) to evaluate the effect of on-street bicycle lane on other road network users (all crashes), and, (4) to assess the role of on-network...

Access to relative location of nearby vehicles on the local roads or on the freeways is useful for providing critical alerts to the drivers, thereby enhancing their driving experience as well as reducing the chances of accidents. The problem of determining the relative location of two vehicles can be broken into two smaller subproblems: (i) Relative lane localization, where a vehicle determines...

An experiment collected proximity data of motor traffic overtaking cycle traffic on roads with and without cycle lanes using an instrumented bicycle. The work enhances previous research which has considered the riding position of the cyclist and whether or not the cyclist was helmeted, while controlling for vehicle type. The analysis shows that significantly wider passing distances are adopted ...

This paper presents a robust and reliable lane extraction algorithm to navigate the wheelchair robot in real time in outdoor environments. Seven components have been cooperatively utilized to extract lane boundaries on roads with different conditions. Specifically, three features are efficiently extracted to represent two lane boundaries using the lane boundaries in the previous frame. Three we...

Fatal high-speed head-on collisions often occur in limited spaces on two-lane roads without median strips. While the installation of such strips is permitted under the Road Construction Ordinance, their provision to date has been limited due to the high associated costs. Wire rope guardrail systems, which can be seen as an alternative to median strips, involve the use of thin posts, have a buff...

A fundamental requirement for making sustainable improvements to rural infrastructure is a clear understanding of who will finance maintenance and capital improvements. In the past the question of financing rural roads has centered primarily on the role of governments. Given the acute scarcity of financial and human resources in most developing countries, there are simply too many kilometers of...

Fundamental macroscopic traffic variables (flow, density, and average speed) have been defined in twoways: classical (defined as either temporal or spatial averages) and generalized (defined as temporal-spatial averages). In the available literature, estimation of the generalized variables is still missing. This paper proposes a new efficient sequential algorithm for estimating the generalized ...