Giuseppina Pappalardo

Safety Inspection and Management Tools for Low-Volume Road Network

On low-volume roads, where crash frequency is less than on high-volume roads, the role of procedures alternative to and complementing crash investigations becomes substantially more important; safety inspections as a proactive approach to road safety can be very effective for this class of roads. From the results of the European Union research report Identification of Hazard Location and Ranking of Measures to Improve Safety on Local Rural Roads, a safety risk index (SRI) was formulated as a measure of risk that uses the safety inspection as the primary source of information associated with design consistency assessment of the horizontal alignment. Moreover, because of its quantitative evaluation, the SRI can be used to determine benefits and a cost–benefit ratio of different intervention strategies. Then, since there are often situations in which the available budget will not be enough to undertake all the measures in the road network, an SRI-based optimization algorithm was defined for selecting projects to be included in the budget.

Use of technology to improve bicycle mobility in smart cities

In the past few decades there has been a significant growth in cycling and the use of bicycles as a transportation mode and beyond recreational use. Technological advancements along with mobile phones and web platforms can aid bicyclists while considering and planning their routes. Moreover, the vast data that can be generated, and thus collected, from smartphones can provide a database that can be used to develop a systematic evaluation of potential routes and provide meaningful information to the bicyclists. Several of these technologies are based on self-monitoring efforts and sharing experiences among bicyclists but they do not provide a systematic and objective evaluation of the infrastructure. Throughout the world, transportation agencies are promoting bicycling as a serious alternative transportation option, since it provides health benefits and reduces carbon emissions and congestion. It is imperative then that transportation agencies can provide an appropriate infrastructure in order to encourage the continued growth of bicycling. The current technological tools can aid in data collection but what is currently lacking is a systematic, objective review of such information that a transportation agency can use aiming to assess existing infrastructure and develop an action plan to complete and improve it. Transportation agencies require information about their facilities and the use of technology can provide such data in order to better estimate needs and develop an action plan. This paper reviews existing such platforms and applications under the premise of developing a systematic review and an objective performance index for bicycling infrastructure.

APPLICATION OF SAFETY INSPECTIONS FOR EVALUATION OF TWO - LANE REGIONAL ROADS IN POLAND

Abstract In the paper methods for conducting Road Safety Inspections (SIs) in Italy and Poland are described and compared. The goal of the study is to improve the quality and efficiency of the safety inspections of road network by using low cost equipment (GPS, Tablet, Camera) and specific software. Particular attention was paid to the need for proper calibration of factors, causing traffic safety hazard associated with road infrastructure. The model developed according to the Italian procedures was adapted to comply with the checklists and evaluation criteria of the Polish guidelines. Overall, a good agreement between the two approaches was identified, however some modification was required to include new safety issues, characteristic for the Polish network for safety inspection of two lane rural roads. To test the applicability about 100 km of regional two lane roads in Poland were inspected with Polish and Italian procedures.

How to Compare Different National Databases of HGV Accidents to Identify Issues for Safety Improvements

The objective of this paper is to present a methodological approach and a case study for an international comparison of accident data coming from different national databases. Safety levels and the characteristics of severe crashes involving heavy goods vehicles in different European countries (Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain) are analyzed. Considering that all the countries involved have different inventory structures for the variables reported in their national accident databases, the taxonomy theory was used in order to create a comparable structure for the database used in the analysis. The taxonomy is non-exclusive and the codes are categorical, denoting the absence or presence of a certain feature. Based on the data available in each national database the five European Union databases of accidents involving heavy goods vehicles have been referenced to only one, composed of 11 items (casualty class, injury number and severity, location, light conditions, road conditions, junction, vehicle type, driver age, driver gender, accident type and maneuvers) , which capture common features of heavy goods vehicles accidents. A statistical analysis was carried out in order to highlight significant differences in the proportions of heavy goods vehicles crash categories.