Modelling of Traffic Hazards at Urban Intersections Using Potential Collision Areas

Abstract

Correct traffic safety management requires evaluation of infrastructure elements already at the stage of planning and designing in terms of the traffic hazards level. There are many methods in the world used for such evaluation of traffic safety for rural road sections, however, there are relatively few methods concerning urban intersections. The method presented in this article applies to the evaluation of traffic safety at urban intersections. It is based on the estimation of the number of road traffic incidents (RTIs) at the selected intersection areas, in which there is a possibility that two traffic streams, called potential collision areas, will converge at the same time. Preliminary research results show that the probability of an RTI in a potential collision area depends primarily on the probability of two traffic streams converging in the same area at the same time. To a large extent, the degree of traffic road incident occurrence hazard depends also on some factors connected to traffic conditions right before the given streams appear in a potential collision area.