A Practical Approach to Safety management of County Roads

Rural roads are well-documented as having a greater traffic fatality rate than urban roads. For medium- and high-volume rural roads with a considerable crash history, previous studies have focused on the identification of high-crash locations. The majority of rural roads in Indiana are low-volume county roads. However, the methods for identifying safety problems on medium- and high-volume roads are often not suitable for county roads. Such methods may result in improper allocation of resources for safety upgrades to only the particular locations which experienced crashes, not necessarily where the crash risk is greatest. For example, there may be hazards on the road right-of-way that have not yet been manifested through crashes, but still represent a considerable risk should they influence the driver’s behavior and/or affect the crash outcome. This study proposes decision-making based on the crash risk and fatality risk on road elements (segments and intersections) estimated from the geometry, pavement, roadside features, and traffic volume (if available). The methodology will be applied to the rural county road network in Tippecanoe County. Once the road elements with the highest risk are identified, the actual crash history will be used to supplement the analysis. The outcome of this study will be implemented as a project-oriented safety management tool for county roads. This approach will identify low-cost safety countermeasures applied to multiple roadway elements which will provide the most benefits under limited resources. The proposed approach will make economic justification of safety improvements on county roads easier than the current method based on high-crash locations