Analysis of Safety Impact of Raising Trucks Speed Limit on Rural Freeways in Ohio

Analysis of Safety Impact of Raising Trucks Speed Limit on Rural Freeways in Ohio

Presenter(s)

Nayabtigungu Hendrix Ouedraogo

Description

Large trucks play a key role in the overall safety of the highway transportation system. Previous studies have shown that in Ohio large trucks are over-represented in crashes that lead into serious and fatal injuries [1,2]. Critical factors in truck-related crashes can be divided into environmental, road geometric related, human and driver-related, or vehicle related factors. A previous study that analyzed factors affecting truck-related crashes in Ohio found that posted speed limit and speed-related factors were among the significant factors impacting crash severity of truck-related crashes [1]. Several studies have shown that increasing speed limits on roadways has a significant impact both on safety and operating speeds [3-5]. On July 1, 2013 the Ohio’s legislature raised the speed limits on rural freeways from 65 mi/h to 70 mi/h for passenger vehicles, buses and trucks and to date the safety impact of this speed limit raise has not been evaluated. The current study is investigating the impact of raising the speed limit on crash severity specifically with interest with large trucks and buses on rural freeways in Ohio. Statewide crash data have been obtained from the Ohio Department of Public Safety (ODPS) between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2017. Given the numerous number of rural freeway segments located all over the state and traffic volumes for each segment over the study period are not easily obtainable, therefore the use of standard observational before/after study empirical Bayes (EB) method is not feasible in this case. This research will utilize the time series analysis model, which is a statistical method that can take care the differences in crashes occurring in different years and recognize trends in different periods of times. In essence, time series analysis is a statistical technique that deals with time series data, or trend analysis. Time series data means that data is in a series of particular time periods or intervals. Currently we are analyzing the data and the study will be completed before the Stander Symposium date.

Publication Date

4-24-2019

Project Designation

Graduate Research

Primary Advisor

Deogratias Eustace, Maher B. Qumsiyeh

Primary Advisor's Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Keywords

Stander Symposium project

Analysis of Safety Impact of Raising Trucks Speed Limit on Rural Freeways in Ohio

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