Association between Driveway Land Use and Safety Performance on Rural Highways

Abstract

Rural roads are a critical component of the transportation network in the U.S., including Michigan, where county roads comprise of a majority of the state’s roadway mileage. The rates of fatal crashes on rural highways are substantially higher than that on urban roads. Previous research has investigated the safety impacts of driveway density, but the effects of driveway land use on rural roadway safety performance, particularly for county roadways, remains under-researched. This study analyzed the safety impacts of various classifications of driveway land utilization on rural two-lane state and county roads. Non-animal segment crashes from 2011 to 2015 were analyzed along with roadway data for over 5,556 mi of state highways and 5,890 mi of paved county segments from across Michigan. To account for the unobserved heterogeneity associated with varied county design standards and site characteristics, mixed-effects negative binomial regression with county- and site-specific random effects was utilized. Separate models were developed for state highways and paved county roads. The results indicated that commercial driveways possess a stronger effect on crash occurrence than other driveway land use types, including residential and industrial driveways. The effect of driveway density on crash frequency was also found to be stronger on state highways compared with the county roads. This study contributes to the limited body of knowledge in relation to the relationship between traffic safety and driveway land use for rural roadway segments, particularly for county roads, which typically possess design and travel characteristics that are considerably different from those of state highways.