ROAD SAFETY AUDIT FOR FOUR LANE NATIONAL HIGHWAYS

Abstract

An ongoing challenge to transportation engineers is to plan and operate the transportation system in such a way that it meets various societal objectives such as reducing travel time and enhancing safety. Over the years, there has been an unprecedented increase in road transportation and vehicular traffic in India due to an exponential growth in the economy and consumption habits, which has led to unsafe conditions on our highways. Casualties due to accidents on these roads are increasing year after year. The road accidents deaths and injuries are global phenomena but more sever situation in mixed traffic condition as prevailing on Indian multilane highways. During.the_ year 2009 there were around 4.9 Lakh road accidents which killed 1,25,660 people and injured more than 5 Lakh persons on Indian roads. Owing to the likely under-reporting of accidents, the real situation is likely to be much worse. To deteriorate the road safety further, there is habit of poor maintenance of vehicle, bad driving practice, lack of enforcement, casual attitude of road users and least concerned towards the basic road safety measures by road maintaining agencies Now, Road safety has become a growing concern for the public in general and highway professional in particular as road accidents are a major source of loss of life. Furthermore; the economic losses caused by property damage or lost of working days resulting from injuries fatality have been estimated at billions of rupees annually. Concept of quality management and sustainable safety have gained ground in the past two decades and may have been among the factors that led policymakers and project managers to realize the need for purely safety-oriented tools to reduce the accident rate. This thesis attempts to develop a simplified methodology for identification of critical accidentausative parameters by the principles of the road safety audit on /.32-C4241e" applying a newly construct f urn ane National Highway-58. The critical accident causative parameters were identified through ANN, multiple linear and non-linear regression models. Accordingly, the most influencing safety variables had been identified which were responsible for road accidents on the highway. Based on the parameters identified for further investigation 1a detailed field study programme was chalked out. Data collection of road accidents and safety parameters had been done on the selected segment of NH-58. Data analysis has been done for various relations in between causative parameters. Correlation has been developed for all selected variables. Strong correlation has been found in between accident rate and independent variables i.e. surface condition, road markings traffic volume, spot speed and median width condition & openings. Some models like Multiple Linear Regression, Non-Linear Regression and ANN have been undertaken for identification of safety influencing variables. The same section but opposite in direction data has been used for cross-validations of the developed model. ANN Regression model was found the best model which was showing maximum Goodness of fit with R2 value 98.60% in model development and 93.60% in cross validation. Based on the above analysis, Road Markings, Shoulders conditions, Traffic Volume and Spot Speed are identified as the most influencing safety parameters. -On effective monitoring of theseidentified safety influencing parameters, a road maintaining agency can be enhance overall safety and reduce accident meaningfully of divided four - lane National Highways of the country.