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Abstract

An attempt is made to integrally evaluate the safety of large trucks on mountainous highways. The I-70 corridor in Colorado is chosen to demonstrate the methodology because of its typical mountainous terrain and adverse weather conditions. First, the ten-year historical accident records are analyzed to identify the accident-vulnerable-locations (AVLs) and site-specific critical adverse driving conditions. Second, simulation-based single-vehicle assessment is performed for predicting the large truck accident risks with the combination of given weather, topographical, road, and vehicle information at those AVLs along the whole corridor. A framework of a reliability-based assessment model of vehicle safety under adverse driving conditions is developed. Such a framework is built based on the advanced transient dynamic vehicle simulation models, which can consider the coupling effects between vehicles and adverse driving conditions, such as wind gust, snow-covered or icy road surfaces and/or curving. The single-vehicle safety index is introduced to provide a rational assessment of accident risks by considering uncertainties of critical variables. Finally, GIS maps with topographic conditions embedded are generated. By displaying the data on the GIS-based map, different accident risk indices can easily be displayed and compared on the GIS map.

How to Cite

Chen, Suren, and Feng Chen. Reliability-Based Safety Risk and Cost Production of Large Trucks on Rural Highways, MPC-11-243. North Dakota State University - Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, Fargo: Mountain-Plains Consortium, 2011.