Evaluation of a simulation-based surrogate safety metric

Area of Science:

• Traffic Engineering
• Transportation Safety
• Road Safety Analysis

Background:

• Historical crash data often suffers from availability and quality issues, necessitating the development of surrogate safety measures.
• The Aggregate Conflict Propensity Metric (ACPM) is a novel surrogate metric derived from conflict studies and traffic simulations.
• ACPM aims to evaluate the relative safety of traffic infrastructure and interventions, aiding engineers in selecting optimal treatments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the reliability and effectiveness of the Aggregate Conflict Propensity Metric (ACPM) as a surrogate safety measure.
• To compare ACPM's performance against traditional conflict indicators in assessing traffic safety under varying traffic volumes.
• To validate ACPM's consistency with established safety benchmarks like the Highway Safety Manual.

Main Methods:

• Conducted three experimental tests using traffic simulations to assess ACPM's performance.
• Compared ACPM with a traditional conflict indicator in identifying and ranking traffic safety.
• Analyzed traffic conditions under various traffic volumes to evaluate the metric's robustness.

Main Results:

• ACPM demonstrated strength and reliability across all three experimental tests.
• Results generated by ACPM showed high consistency with the Highway Safety Manual.
• The metric effectively identified and ranked the safety of different traffic conditions.

Conclusions:

• ACPM is a promising surrogate safety measure for traffic engineering applications.
• The metric accurately identifies relative safety levels among traffic treatments and facilities.
• ACPM provides valuable insights into the potential safety impacts of traffic interventions.