Impact of Truck Regulation and 65MPH Speed Limit on Truck Accidents in New Jersey Rajat G
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New Jersey Institute of Technology Digital Commons @ NJIT Theses Theses and Dissertations Spring 2002 Impact of truck regulation and 65MPH speed limit on truck accidents in New Jersey Rajat G. Rajbhandari New Jersey Institute of Technology Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/theses Part of the Civil Engineering Commons Recommended Citation Rajbhandari, Rajat G., "Impact of truck regulation and 65MPH speed limit on truck accidents in New Jersey" (2002). Theses. 703. https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/theses/703 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Digital Commons @ NJIT. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ NJIT. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Please Note: The author retains the copyright while the New Jersey Institute of Technology reserves the right to distribute this thesis or dissertation Printing note: If you do not wish to print this page, then select “Pages from: first page # to: last page #” on the print dialog screen The Van Houten library has removed some of the personal information and all signatures from the approval page and biographical sketches of theses and dissertations in order to protect the identity of NJIT graduates and faculty. ABSTRACT IMPACT OF TRUCK REGULATION AND 65MPH SPEED LIMIT ON TRUCK ACCIDENTS IN NEW JERSEY by Rajat Rajbhandari The state of New Jersey enacted two regulations with significant importance to the highway operations: 65 mph speed limit and truck restriction on the National Network. The speed limit of 65mph was used on limited sections of interstate system highways with an objective to reduce energy consumption by vehicles and truck restriction was used on the interstate system and other state highway system to reduce large truck accidents and thereby increase truck safety. In this research, the safety impacts of these two regulations on truck crashes were studied. The research focused on monthly truck crashes along the highway sections where the regulations were implemented to determine whether there was an increase or decrease in truck crashes. In addition to simple before-after average comparisons, a complex time series method was used to analyze the monthly truck statistics. The effect of regulation was analyzed as an intervention parameter in a Box-Jenkins Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model of monthly truck crashes along entire routes and section of the routes. In general, the results were inconclusive. IMPACT OF TRUCK REGULATION AND 65MPH SPEED LIMIT ON TRUCK ACCIDENTS IN NEW JERSEY by Rajat Rajbhandari A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Civil Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering May 2002 APPROVAL PAGE IMPACT OF TRUCK REGULATION AND 65MPH SPEED LIMIT ON TRUCK ACCIDENTS IN NEW JERSEY Rajat Raj bhandari Dr. Janice Daniel, Thesis Advisor Date Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT Dr. Steven Chien, Committee Member Date Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT Dr. Athanassios Bladikas, Committee Member Date Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, NJIT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Author: Raj at Rajbhandari Degree: Master of Science Date: May 2002 Undergraduate and Graduate Education: • Master of Science in Civil Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 2002 • Bachelor in Civil Engineering, Institute of Engineering, Tribhuwan University, Lalitpur, Nepal, 1997 Major: Civil Engineering Presentations and Publications: Janice R. Daniel, Rajat Rajbhandari and Steven Chien, "Evaluation of Truck Crashes in New Jersey," The 81 St Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board, Washington DC, January 2001 iv To my beloved family and friends ACKNOWLEDGMENT My sincere appreciation goes to my academic advisor, Dr. Janice Daniel. Without her guidance, my efforts during the entire graduate program would have been fruitless. I am also indebted to her for providing financial support through the National Center for Transportation Improvement and Industrial Productivity (NCTIP) at New Jersey Institute of Technology. I am also honored to have Dr. Steven Chien and Dr. Athanassios Bladikas as members of my Committee. I extend gratitude to my family for providing me with support and inspiration throughout my endeavor. Finally, sincere thanks to my fellow graduate students at New Jersey Institute of Technology. vi AE O COES Chptr Page INTRODUCTION ... ..... ........... ...... ............. ....................... ... ..... ..... ............. 1 1.1 Introduction ..................................... ...... ............... ......... ............ .... 1 1 .2 Background ............................. ....... ... ........... ..... ....... .......... ....... .............. 2 1.3 Problem Definition 4 1 .4 Objective ..... ... ..... ............ ..... ..... ....... ..... .............. .......................... ... ..... .. 5 1.5 Thesis Layout .. ..... .................... ....... .............. ..... ....... ..... ....... ................. .. 6 2 LITERATURE REVIEW............................ ............. .................. .. ..... 8 2 .1 Introduction ........................ ...... ....... ..... ........ ............... ............ ................ 9 2.2 Before-After Study 9 2.2.1 Introduction 9 2.2.2 Prediction 11 2.2.3 Estimation 2 2.2.4 Naïve Before After Study 12 2.3 Time Series Analysis. ........ ................ .................................... ..... .......... ...... 14 2.3.1 Introduction 14 2.3.2 Univariate Box-Jenkins or ARIMA Method 15 2.3.3 Intervention Analysis 17 2.4 Other Statistical Studies 18 2.4.1 Before-After Comparison Studies 18 2.4.2 ARIMA Studies 19 2.4.3 Other Statistical Method Studies 20 2.5 SAS/ETS Package 21 3 POLICY IMPACT STUD ES ....... ..... ........ ..... .......... ............. ...... .................. ..... 23 3 .1 Truck Regulation.... ...................... ..................... ... ................. ........ .. ....... .. 23 3.1.1 Introduction 23 3.1.2 Truck Regulation and STAA 23 3.1.3 Truck Regulation in New Jersey 24 3.2 65-mph Speed Limit 27 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Chapter Page 3 .2.1 Introduction ......................... ................ ...... ...... ........... .. 27 3.2.2 65-mph Speed Limit in New Jersey 27 3.2.3 Selection of Roadways for 65 mph speed limit 30 3.2.4 Safety Impact of 65 mph Speed Limit ............ ........... ..... ....... 31 3.2.5 Impact of Speed Limit on Accident ..... ............................ 38 3.2.6 Impact of Speed Limit on Truck Accident 40 4 VARIABLES AND INDICATORS 41 4.1 Introduction ....................... ...... .. ..... .............. ........... ....... .... ..... ......... 41 4.2 Safety Indicators 42 4.3 Variable for Truck Regulation Study 43 4.4 Variable for 65 mph Speed Limit Study .............. ...... ...... .......... 43 5 ACCIDENT DATABASE 45 5 .1 Data Source ..... .............................. ...... ........... ...... ....... .. ........... ..... ....... 45 5.2 Definition of Truck 45 5.3 Data Extraction ..................................... ...... ... ......... .............................. 45 6 METHODOLOGY................ ..... .............. ........................... ....... ........ 47 6.1 Introduction .................... ....... .......... ........ ......... ........................... ..... ..... 47 6.2 Before-After Studies 47 6.2.1 Truck Regulation Analysis 48 6.2.2 65 mph Speed Limit Analysis 48 6.3 Box-Jenkins Models 49 6.3.1 Introduction ..... ...... .............. ........ ..... ....... ........................ .......... 49 6.3.2 Stationary and Nonstationary Processes 51 6.3.3 AR, MA, ARMA and ARIMA Processes 51 6.3.4 Identification ........ ..... ..... ..... ....... ........... .............. ........... ....... ..... 56 6.3.5 Estimation ........... ..... ................. ............. ........ ......... 57 6.3.6 Diagnostic Checking 58 6.3.7 Evaluation of Results 58 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Chapter Page 6.3.8 Truck Regulation and 65 mph Speed Limit Analysis 59 6.4 SAS/ETS Methods 59 7 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 60 7.1 Introduction .............................. ........... .................. ...... .............. 60 7.2 Truck Regulation Analysis......... ........... ...... ........... ................. 60 7.2.1 Monthly Truck Crash Observation.......... ..... ....................... ..... 60 7.2.2 Before-After Analysis ......... ................. ......... ...... ...... 64 7.2.3 Box-Jenkins Models.... ....... ......... ............. .................... ........ 68 7.2.4 Analysis and Results 71