Development of Traffic Safety Zones and Integrating Macroscopic and Microscopic Safety Data Analytics for Novel Hot Zone Identification
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University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2014 Development of Traffic Safety Zones and Integrating Macroscopic and Microscopic Safety Data Analytics for Novel Hot Zone Identification JaeYoung Lee University of Central Florida Part of the Civil Engineering Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Lee, JaeYoung, "Development of Traffic Safety Zones and Integrating Macroscopic and Microscopic Safety Data Analytics for Novel Hot Zone Identification" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4619. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4619 DEVELOPMENT OF TRAFFIC SAFETY ZONES AND INTEGRATING MACROSCOPIC AND MICROSCOPIC SAFETY DATA ANALYTICS FOR NOVEL HOT ZONE IDENTIFICATION by JAEYOUNG LEE B. Eng. Ajou University, Korea, 2007 M.S. Ajou University, Korea, 2009 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2014 Major Professor: Mohamed Abdel-Aty © 2014 JAEYOUNG LEE ii ABSTRACT Traffic safety has been considered one of the most important issues in the transportation field. With consistent efforts of transportation engineers, Federal, State and local government officials, both fatalities and fatality rates from road traffic crashes in the United States have steadily declined from 2006 to 2011.Nevertheless, fatalities from traffic crashes slightly increased in 2012 (NHTSA, 2013). We lost 33,561 lives from road traffic crashes in the year 2012, and the road traffic crashes are still one of the leading causes of deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In recent years, efforts to incorporate traffic safety into transportation planning has been made, which is termed as transportation safety planning (TSP). The Safe, Affordable, Flexible Efficient, Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which is compliant with the United States Code, compels the United States Department of Transportation to consider traffic safety in the long-term transportation planning process. Although considerable macro-level studies have been conducted to facilitate the implementation of TSP, still there are critical limitations in macroscopic safety studies are required to be investigated and remedied. First, TAZ (Traffic Analysis Zone), which is most widely used in travel demand forecasting, has crucial shortcomings for macro-level safety modeling. Moreover, macro-level safety models have accuracy problem. The low prediction power of the model may be caused by crashes that occur near the boundaries of zones, high-level aggregation, and neglecting spatial autocorrelation. iii In this dissertation, several methodologies are proposed to alleviate these limitations in the macro-level safety research. TSAZ (Traffic Safety Analysis Zone) is developed as a new zonal system for the macroscopic safety analysis and nested structured modeling method is suggested to improve the model performance. Also, a multivariate statistical modeling method for multiple crash types is proposed in this dissertation. Besides, a novel screening methodology for integrating two levels is suggested. The integrated screening method is suggested to overcome shortcomings of zonal-level screening, since the zonal-level screening cannot take specific sites with high risks into consideration. It is expected that the integrated screening approach can provide a comprehensive perspective by balancing two aspects: macroscopic and microscopic approaches. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to thank his advisor, Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Aty, for his invaulable guidance, advice and support and encouragement toward successful completion of his doctoral course. The author wishes to acknowldege the support of my committee members, Dr. Essam Radwan, Dr. Keechoo Choi, Dr. Boo Hyun Nam, and Dr. Pei-Fen Kuo. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xi LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF ACRONYMS/ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................... xv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Research Motivation ........................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Research Objectives ......................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Organization of the Dissertation ...................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................... 7 2.1 Macroscopic Safety Studies ............................................................................................. 7 2.1.1 Geographical units for studies .................................................................................. 8 2.1.2 Studies on total crashes ........................................................................................... 13 2.1.3 Studies on PDO and/or injury crashes .................................................................... 18 2.1.4 Studies on fatal crashes ........................................................................................... 24 2.1.5 Studies on bicycle and pedestrian crashes .............................................................. 27 2.2 Current Issues of Macroscopic Safety Modeling ........................................................... 32 2.2.1 Spatial autocorrelation problem .............................................................................. 33 2.2.2 Boundary crash problem ......................................................................................... 34 2.2.3 Modifiable areal unit problem ................................................................................ 36 2.2.4 Under-reporting problem ........................................................................................ 37 2.3 Regionalization............................................................................................................... 39 vi 2.4 Statistical Methodologies ............................................................................................... 41 2.5 Network Screening Techniques ..................................................................................... 47 2.6 Summary and Conclusion .............................................................................................. 50 CHAPTER 3 ANALYSIS OF RESIDENCE CHARACTERISTICS OF DRIVERS INVOLVED IN CRASHES ............................................................................................................................... 52 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 52 3.2 Data Preparation ............................................................................................................. 56 3.3 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 61 3.4 Modeling Results............................................................................................................ 64 3.5 Discussion of the Result ................................................................................................. 69 3.6 Summary and Conclusion .............................................................................................. 72 CHAPTER 4 MULTIVARIATE MODELING FOR MOTOR VEHICLE, BICYCLE, AND PEDESTRIAN CRASH ANALYSIS ........................................................................................... 76 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 76 4.2 Data Preparation and Methodology................................................................................ 80 4.3 Results and Discussion ................................................................................................... 86 4.4 Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................................. 93 CHAPTER 5 EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHIC UNITS ON MACROSCOPIC SAFETY MODELING ................................................................................................................................. 96 5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 96 5.2 Data Preparation ............................................................................................................