Investigation Of Features Associated With Roadway Departure Crashes On Louisiana Rural Two Lane Highways PDF Download

Over the past several years, Louisiana has installed quite a few relatively new crash countermeasures, such as center line rumble strips (CLRS) on rural two-lane highways, restriping four-lane undivided roadways to three-lane or five-lane roadways with center lane for left turns, restricting median openings on high speed corridors (RCUT), and roundabouts. Evaluating the effectiveness of these crash countermeasures is crucial for the state highway safety improvement programs. According to the results of this study, these four countermeasures are generally cost-effective and successful in reducing crashes, particularly severe crashes. Estimated crash modification factors (CMFs) for total crashes are 0.83 for CLRS by the Empirical Bayes (EB) method. The CMF for the lane conversion to three and five-lane highways are 0.61 and 0.70 by EB method for segment, and 0.69 and 0.76 by Improved Prediction Method for segment plus intersection. The CMF for RCUT is 0.86 and 0.69 by Improved Prediction Method for RCUT section and intersection only. The CMF for RCUT intersection only is 0.80 by EB method. The CMF for roundabout with stop-sign on minor street (without layout change) is 0.32 and 0.28 by Improved Prediction and EB method. Except roundabout, the ratio of benefit to cost (B/C) is bigger or much bigger than one. Being the most expensive countermeasure, the B/C ratio of roundabout is less than one, but that estimation did not count the benefit from the improved traffic flow performance (reduced delay or saving in travel time) and long-time safety benefits (only three after years).