Evaluation of safety factors at Chinese intersections

Abstract

With the rapid development of urbanisation and motorisation in China, actions to improve traffic safety conditions, especially the safety of intersections, are urgently needed. Although the evaluation of traffic influencing factors of urban intersections is not a new topic in developed countries, in China, due to the limitations on the traffic accident collecting time span, processing methods and the division of responsibility among each government sector, intersection safety problems cannot be thoroughly evaluated by current methods. A novel comprehensive influencing factor evaluation procedure (CIFEP) has been developed to carry out the whole process of analysis and control from intersection planning, through design to operation. Using scenario analysis and expert judgment, the task of ‘safety influencing factor identifying' is fulfilled first. Then the risk degree of each influencing factor is quantified by utilising an ‘accident risk degree matrix' to attain ‘safety influencing factor quantifying'. Finally the ‘safety influencing factor mapping' is implemented by allocating the quantified factors to corresponding government sectors. A case study in Shanghai revealed that, in comparison with conventional methods, CIFEP can help to identify the safety influencing factors of the full intersection life cycle, and also coordinate the safety actions among related government departments.