VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND LTD More

VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND LTD More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools Harri Peltola Principal Scientist harri. peltola@vtt. fi

Background § Numerous road safety evaluations are carried out worldwide § Results are often presented as impact coefficients or Crash Modification Factors or Crash Modification Function (CMF): Expected accidents after measure = Target accidents *CMF § Proper safety evaluation tools are urgently needed if existing international safety knowledge is to be used well § Tools should be simple to use and easy to update and understand scientifically well founded October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 2

Finnish-Lithuanian experience on safety tool, TARVA Injury accidents on a road section (5 years) Current number of accidents Accident reduction Simple accident prediction model Measure and its impact coefficient, CMF Average accident severity and its change Reduction of fatalities and serious injuries October 2 nd 2018 § Information from accident history and a simple accident prediction model are combined using the empirical Bayes (EB) method § Road, traffic and accident data and model parameters are updated every year § TARVA means estimation of traffic safety using impact coefficients (CMF) More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 3

Current road safety situation – as reliable as possible § Accident history alone is a very poor prediction of safety Fatalities/100 road km § Up-to-date safety situation must be available for everyone to allocate safety measures and estimate their safety benefits § Same information must be used in every road district October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 4

How well can Tarva predict accidents? 40 Accidents in 2011 -2017 (N=148) 33, 8 Share (%) 30 20 16, 9 § More than 30% of accidents occurred at the 5% of LCs estimated to be accident prone 18, 2 11, 5 10 7, 4 8, 1 2 3 § Example from railroad level crossings (LC) 4, 1 0 1 Share of LCs in 2011 4 5 6 7 LCs allocated to 7 risk categories based on estimates by accidents in 2000 -2010 October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 5

Use of TARVA tool - input § Just select one of the 107 safety measures and choose where to implement What? § Implementation costs are calculated using average costs or you can define them youself Where? (How much? ) October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 6

Use of TARVA tool – output § Report on total effects including current safety and safety benefits § Safety effects for each measure § Special report on the current road safety situation – all public roads in Finland, around 75 000 km October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 7

Example of safety measures in Finland, 2005 Road safety measure Reduced injury accidents /year Proportion (%) Automatic speed camera enforcement 13. 7 38. 5 Renovation of road lighting 4. 6 12. 8 Rumbling road markings 3. 1 8. 6 New lighting with breakable poles 2. 5 7. 0 New roadside railings 1. 8 5. 1 More effective crossing markings 1. 2 3. 4 Improvement of winter maintenance 1. 1 2. 9 Reflective roadside poles 0. 9 2. 5 Intensified attention to speed limits 0. 9 2. 5 Speed reducing humps etc. 0. 4 1. 2 Other measures 4. 8 13. 6 All measures in total 34. 9 100. 0 October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools § Shared tool helps collecting extensive comparable data on implemented safety measures § Automatic speed enforcement has been an extremely cost-effective safety measure 8

Acknowledgements and further information The TARVA projects have been funded by the Finnish Transport Agency, the Finnish Transport Safety Agency and the Lithuanian Road Administration in co-operation with Vilnius Gediminas Technical University Peltola, H. , Rajamäki, R. , Luoma, J. (2013) A tool for safety evaluations of road improvements. Accident Analysis and Prevention. https: //doi. org/10. 1016/j. aap. 2013. 04. 008 Thank you for your time and interest! October 2 nd 2018 More effective road safety work with proper evaluation tools 9