Evaluation of deer-vehicle collision rates in West Virginia and a review of available mitigation techniques.

PDFTech ReportRP-291Traffic accidentsRoad killDeerAccident dataData analysisEvaluationHazard mitigationAccident prone locationsWest VirginiaWest Virginia Dept. of Transportation. Division of HighwaysNichols, A.P.Huijser, M.P.Ament, R.Dayan, S.Unnikrishnan, A.Nick J. Rahall, II Appalachian Transportation Institute (U.S.)Western Transportation InstituteUS Transportation CollectionThis project reviewed police crash reports involving deer and carcass data reported by the West Virginia Departmentof Transportation from 2008-2012. The police crash reports were deemed the most reliable in terms of locationreliability and consistency across the state. This data was used for identifying hotspots across the state based on 2-mile segment lengths. Segments identified as being \ue2\u20ac\u153high\ue2\u20ac? ranged from 13-22 reported deer-vehicle collisions (DVC)over the 5-year period, which is assumed to be lower than the actual number due to underreporting. Modelingcompleted as part of the project suggested that the DVC frequency was positively related to landscape diversity andurban/urbanized areas and negatively related to presence of roadside slopes exceeding 60 degrees (uphill or downhill).The report provides a summary of DVC mitigation measures and funding mechanisms, including specific mitigationrecommendations for West Virginia. The report evaluates various transportation metrics for normalizing state-by-state DVC estimates generated by State Farm insurance for national ranking purposes, including the rural and urbancomponents of the metrics