The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) Traffic and Safety Division continues to advance the safety of the state roadway network through network screening and decision making tools. In an effort to aid UDOT in meeting this goal, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Brigham Young University (BYU) has worked with the Statistics Department in developing analysis tools for highway safety, specifically the Utah Crash Prediction Model (UCPM) and the Utah Crash Severity Model (UCSM). Additional tools and methodologies, such as the "Hot Spot Identification and Analysis," have been created to summarize the roadway characteristics, crash data, and possible countermeasures of roadway segments with safety problems.This research focuses on the creation of a three part "Roadway Safety Analysis" methodology, which applies and automates the cumulative work of recently completed highway safety research conducted for UDOT. The first part is to prepare the roadway data and crash data for the statistical analysis. The second part is to perform the network screening statistical analysis; rank the segments by state, UDOT Region, and county; and select segments of interest. The third part is to compile and publish the Roadway Safety Analysis reports for the selected segments of interest. These parts are accomplished using the automation tools and graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which are documented in three respective volumes of user manuals. The automation tools and GUIs were developed with checks and processes to allow the Roadway Safety Analysis methodology to be completed with new, updated roadway and crash datasets.The Roadway Safety Analysis methodology allows future iterations of the UCPM and UCSM analysis and compilation of the Roadway Safety Analysis reports to be conducted in a user friendly environment. A series of critical data columns were identified to communicate the need for data consistency for future iterations of this safety research. An example of the entire process of the Roadway Safety Analysis methodology is given to illustrate how the three parts tie together. The overall process has automated data processing tasks, which saves time and resources for the analyst to investigate possible safety measures for segments of interest. Recommendations for future highway safety research are given, including continued development of the Roadway Safety Analysis methodology, an analysis of intersections and horizontal curves, the implementation of the Roadway Safety Analysis methodology to other states, and the advancement of safety countermeasures and geospatial tools for highway safety research.

No description available.

Roadway surface friction along the West Virginia Division of Highways' roadway network is key to the safety of all traveling motorists. Being geographically located in the rugged Appalachian Mountains, the West Virginia Division of Highways' roadway network is flooded with innumerable geometric and design challenges, causing drivers to have to exercise the most care and attention when navigating the network. This dissertation introduces the concept of roadway surface friction management to this network. For decades, roadway surface friction has only been tested and checked on an as-needed basis at crash sites and intersections, in legal situations, and pavement acceptance on construction projects. It also seeks to use the acquired data through a case study to insure proper methodology of roadway surface friction management, to develop sample safety performance functions and best crash estimates, and to apply this decision-making data to provide assistance and guidance in the selection of projects in the West Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program. This dissertation follows the manuscript format and is composed of three papers. The first chapter of the dissertation examines the usage of Method 3 of the AASHTO Guide for Pavement Friction and the modifications to this method to collect existing roadway surface friction data along the District Ten portion of the network. The second chapter of the dissertation discusses the development of sample safety performance functions to estimate the average number of crashes along each of the tested roadway categories: Interstate Routes, United States Routes, and West Virginia Routes. It also discussed the development of best crash estimates using the Empirical Bayes Method. This is essential to be able to forecast how crash counts should improve, given the application of various roadway improvements. The third and final chapter of the dissertation develops the case study based on the District Ten portion of the network and shows how to enhance project selection in the West Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program. This is completed by applying the safety performance functions and best crash estimates from the second chapter to arrive at real friction numbers for the network and their project impacts. / Doctor of Philosophy / Roadway surface friction along the West Virginia Division of Highways' roadway network is key to the safety of all traveling motorists. Being geographically located in the rugged Appalachian Mountains, the West Virginia Division of Highways' roadway network is flooded with innumerable geometric and design challenges, causing drivers to have to exercise the most care and attention when navigating the network. This dissertation introduces the concept of roadway surface friction management to this network. For decades, roadway surface friction has only been tested and checked on an as-needed basis at crash sites and intersections, in legal situations, and pavement acceptance on construction projects. It also seeks to use the acquired data through a case study to insure proper methodology of roadway surface friction management, to develop sample safety performance functions and best crash estimates, and to apply this decision-making data to provide assistance and guidance in the selection of projects in the West Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program. This dissertation follows the manuscript format and is composed of three papers. The first chapter of the dissertation examines the usage of Method 3 of the AASHTO Guide for Pavement Friction and the modifications to this method to collect existing roadway surface friction data along the District Ten portion of the network. The second chapter of the dissertation discusses the development of sample safety performance functions to estimate the average number of crashes along each of the tested roadway categories: Interstate Routes, United States Routes, and West Virginia Routes. It also discussed the development of best crash estimates using the Empirical Bayes Method. This is essential to be able to forecast how crash counts should improve, given the application of various roadway improvements. The third and final chapter of the dissertation develops the case study based on the District Ten portion of the network and shows how to enhance project selection in the West Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program. This is completed by applying the safety performance functions and best crash estimates from the second chapter to arrive at real friction numbers for the network and their project impacts.

Esta dissertação trata do uso de dispositivos de proteção lateral. Tão importante quando o projeto da rodovia é o projeto do seu entorno, que está diretamente relacionada à segurança dos veículos desgovernados que saem da pista, seja qual for o motivo. O entorno viário deve ser tal que as conseqüências da saída de pista sejam minimizadas, provendo um entorno livre de obstáculos (sejam árvores, postes, terrenos não atravessáveis, etc.) que possam causar danos severos aos seus motoristas, ou utilizando dispositivo de proteção lateral, na impossibilidade de eliminar os obstáculos agressivos, como estratégias complementares da redução dos danos decorrentes das saídas de pista. Na revisão bibliográfica realizada, os conceitos básicos relacionados com proteção lateral, critérios de seleção do tipo de dispositivos e de posicionamento, além da análise das recomendações para os tratamentos de segurança dos dispositivos de drenagem, foram analisados com o objetivo de identificar os estudos que deram origem aos critérios recomendados tradicionalmente (procurando destacar os pontos importantes que esclarecem a aplicação de tais critérios). Além das recomendações tradicionais, também foram analisados os modelos compreensivos, que tratam de forma mais explícita as saídas de pista e a presença dos dispositivos de proteção lateral, considerando o produto de probabilidades condicionais que envolvem as probabilidades de ocorrência de saídas de pista, a probabilidade da saída de pista estar na envoltória do obstáculo, a probabilidade da distância lateral de saída de pista ser suficiente para haver um impacto, a probabilidade de ocorrência de danos ao motorista e seus ocupantes e o custo associados a estes danos. O trabalho de campo desenvolvido analisou a prática do uso de dispositivos de proteção lateral em uma rodovia paulista examinando a observância às recomendações para o uso de dispositivo de proteção lateral e analisando a relação entre as recomendações para o uso de proteção lateral e a ocorrência de acidentes. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que existe carência de aplicação em locais onde os dispositivos são recomendados pelos critérios tradicionais e por critérios ampliados. Estes critérios tradicionais e ampliados foram também comparados baseados nos conceitos de sensibilidade e especificidade, porém, pouco se pode concluir com a utilização dos dados de acidentes obtidos. / This research provides a review of the recommended criteria for the use of lateral safety devices. As important as the roadway design is the roadside design, that is directly related to the safety of vehicles that encroach on the roadside, regardless of the reason. The roadside must mitigate the consequences of run-off-the-road accidents, providing a contiguous area free of obstacles (trees, poles, unrecoverable grounds, etc.) which can cause severe injury to the vehicle occupants, or deploying lateral protective devices, when it is impossible to remove the hazards, both as complementary strategies for reducing damages from run-off-the road accidents. In the literature review, the basic concepts related to roadside protection, the warrants for selecting the type and placement of devices, besides the analysis of recommendation for the safety treatment of drainage devices, were analyzed to identify the studies which gave rise to the traditionally recommended criteria (trying to emphasize the important points that explain the application of such criteria). In addition to traditional recommendations, the comprehensive models were also analyzed, which deals more explicitly with the encroachments and the presence of lateral safety devices as the product of conditional probabilities that involve the encroachment probability, the probability of the encroachment occurring in a hazard envelope, the probability that the vehicle will encroach laterally far enough to reach the hazard, the probability of injury to the driver and passengers, and the cost associated with this injury. Then, the field work analyzed the practice on the use of lateral protective devices in a highway of the State of São Paulo, examining the observance to recommended criteria for using lateral protective devices and analyzing the relationship between the recommendations for the use of lateral protective devices and accident history. The results have shown that there is a deficit in the deployment on sites where the devices were recommended by traditional criteria and improved criteria. This traditional and improved criteria was also compared based on sensitivity and specificity concept, but no valuable conclusions was obtained with the use of accident data available.

Tractors and other self-propelled farm equipment, such as combines, sprayers, and towed grain carts, are often used on public roadways as the primary means for traveling from homestead to homestead or from homestead to a distributer. Increased roadway exposure has led to a growing concern for crashes involving farm equipment on the public roadway. A handful of studies exist examining public roadway crashes involving farm equipment using crash data, but none thus far have evaluated road segment data to identify road-specific risk factors. The objective of this study is to identify if roadway characteristics (traffic density, speed limit, road type, surface type, road width, and shoulder width) affect the risk of a crash involving farm equipment on Iowa public roadways. A retrospective cohort study of Iowa roads was conducted to identify the types of roads that are at an increased risk of having a farm-equipment crash on them. Crash data from the Iowa Department of Transportation (to identify crashes) were spatial linked to Iowa roadway data using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Logistic regression was used to calculate ORs and 95% CL. Out of 319,705 road segments in Iowa, 0.4% segments (n=1,337) had a farm equipment crash from 2005-2011. The odds of having a farm equipment crash were significantly higher for road segments with increased traffic density and speed limit. Roads with an average daily traffic volume of at least 1,251 vehicles were at a 5.53 times greater odds of having a crash than roads with a daily traffic volume between 0-30 vehicles. (CI: 3.90-7.83). Roads with a posted speed limit between 50mph and 60mph were at a 4.88 times greater odds of having a crash than roads with a posted speed limit of 30mph or less. (CI: 3.85-6.20). Specific roadway characteristics such as roadway and shoulder width were also associated with the risk of a crash. For every 5 foot increase in road width, the odds for a crash decreased by 6 percent (CI: 0.89-0.99) and for every 5 foot increase in shoulder width, the odds of a crash decreased by 8 percent. (CI: 0.86-0.98). Although not statically significant, unpaved roads increased the odds of a crash by 17 percent. (CI: 0.91-1.50) Lastly, it was found that Farm to Market routes increased the odds of a crash by two fold compared to local roads (which make up roughly 67 percent of Iowa public roads). (CI: 1.72-2.43) When the same model was stratified by rurality (urban/rural), it was found that high traffic density leads to a higher risk of a crash in rural areas. Iowa routes and Farm to Market routes had a greater odds of a crash in urban than rural areas, and road and shoulder width were more protective in rural than urban areas. When only using roads with a crash involving an injury versus all other roads as the outcome, Iowa routes and roads with increased speed limits had higher odds for an injury-involved crash, while increased road width were more protective against crashes involving injuries. Findings from the study suggest that several roadway characteristics were associated with farm-equipment crashes. Through administrative and engineering controls, the six static explanatory variables used in this study may be modified to decrease the risk of a farm equipment crash. Speed limit can be modified through administrative controls while traffic density, road and shoulder width, road type, and surface type can be modified through engineering controls. Results from this study provide information that will aid policy-makers in developing safer roads for farm equipment.

BACKGROUND: Exposures to air pollution has been associated with lower conception and fertility rates. However, the impact of pollution on infertility is unknown. OBJECTIVES: To examine the associations of roadway proximity (a measure of traffic exposure) and particulate matter (PM) air pollution and incidence of infertility. METHODS: Proximity to major roadways and ambient exposures to particulate matter less than 10 microns (PM10), between 2.5 and 10 microns (PM2.5-10), and less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) were determined for all residential addresses for 36,294 members of the prospective Nurses' Health Study II cohort from 1993 to 2003. Infertility was defined by report of attempted conception for ≥12 months without success. Participants were able to report if evaluation was sought and if so, offer multiple clinical indications for infertility. Multivariable adjusted Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the relation between each exposure and infertility risk. RESULTS: Over 213,416 person-years, there were 2,508 incident reports of infertility. Results for overall infertility were inconsistent across exposure types. We observed a small increased risk in those living closer to compared to farther from a major road, multivariable adjusted hazard ratio (HR)=1.11(95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.02-1.20). Among those reporting primary infertility, risk was greater with closer distance to road and for all PM size fractions and exposure time windows. The multivariable adjusted HR (95%CI) for women living closer to compared to farther from a major road for primary infertility was 1.37 (1.22-1.52), while for secondary infertility HR=1.07 (0.95-1.21). In addition, the HR for every 10 mcg increase in cumulative PM2.5 among women with primary infertility was 1.61 (1.35-1.92), while it was 1.1 (0.91-1.33) for those with secondary infertility. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests exposures to traffic and PM may be associated with a small increased risk of infertility, especially primary infertility.

Esta dissertação trata do uso de dispositivos de proteção lateral. Tão importante quando o projeto da rodovia é o projeto do seu entorno, que está diretamente relacionada à segurança dos veículos desgovernados que saem da pista, seja qual for o motivo. O entorno viário deve ser tal que as conseqüências da saída de pista sejam minimizadas, provendo um entorno livre de obstáculos (sejam árvores, postes, terrenos não atravessáveis, etc.) que possam causar danos severos aos seus motoristas, ou utilizando dispositivo de proteção lateral, na impossibilidade de eliminar os obstáculos agressivos, como estratégias complementares da redução dos danos decorrentes das saídas de pista. Na revisão bibliográfica realizada, os conceitos básicos relacionados com proteção lateral, critérios de seleção do tipo de dispositivos e de posicionamento, além da análise das recomendações para os tratamentos de segurança dos dispositivos de drenagem, foram analisados com o objetivo de identificar os estudos que deram origem aos critérios recomendados tradicionalmente (procurando destacar os pontos importantes que esclarecem a aplicação de tais critérios). Além das recomendações tradicionais, também foram analisados os modelos compreensivos, que tratam de forma mais explícita as saídas de pista e a presença dos dispositivos de proteção lateral, considerando o produto de probabilidades condicionais que envolvem as probabilidades de ocorrência de saídas de pista, a probabilidade da saída de pista estar na envoltória do obstáculo, a probabilidade da distância lateral de saída de pista ser suficiente para haver um impacto, a probabilidade de ocorrência de danos ao motorista e seus ocupantes e o custo associados a estes danos. O trabalho de campo desenvolvido analisou a prática do uso de dispositivos de proteção lateral em uma rodovia paulista examinando a observância às recomendações para o uso de dispositivo de proteção lateral e analisando a relação entre as recomendações para o uso de proteção lateral e a ocorrência de acidentes. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que existe carência de aplicação em locais onde os dispositivos são recomendados pelos critérios tradicionais e por critérios ampliados. Estes critérios tradicionais e ampliados foram também comparados baseados nos conceitos de sensibilidade e especificidade, porém, pouco se pode concluir com a utilização dos dados de acidentes obtidos. / This research provides a review of the recommended criteria for the use of lateral safety devices. As important as the roadway design is the roadside design, that is directly related to the safety of vehicles that encroach on the roadside, regardless of the reason. The roadside must mitigate the consequences of run-off-the-road accidents, providing a contiguous area free of obstacles (trees, poles, unrecoverable grounds, etc.) which can cause severe injury to the vehicle occupants, or deploying lateral protective devices, when it is impossible to remove the hazards, both as complementary strategies for reducing damages from run-off-the road accidents. In the literature review, the basic concepts related to roadside protection, the warrants for selecting the type and placement of devices, besides the analysis of recommendation for the safety treatment of drainage devices, were analyzed to identify the studies which gave rise to the traditionally recommended criteria (trying to emphasize the important points that explain the application of such criteria). In addition to traditional recommendations, the comprehensive models were also analyzed, which deals more explicitly with the encroachments and the presence of lateral safety devices as the product of conditional probabilities that involve the encroachment probability, the probability of the encroachment occurring in a hazard envelope, the probability that the vehicle will encroach laterally far enough to reach the hazard, the probability of injury to the driver and passengers, and the cost associated with this injury. Then, the field work analyzed the practice on the use of lateral protective devices in a highway of the State of São Paulo, examining the observance to recommended criteria for using lateral protective devices and analyzing the relationship between the recommendations for the use of lateral protective devices and accident history. The results have shown that there is a deficit in the deployment on sites where the devices were recommended by traditional criteria and improved criteria. This traditional and improved criteria was also compared based on sensitivity and specificity concept, but no valuable conclusions was obtained with the use of accident data available.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2004Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:51:51Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silvajunior_rf_me_prud.pdf: 4551272 bytes, checksum: 2f71a4e07f01b3add79b7c1b7befa632 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / A competitividade atinente ao capitalismo, torna-se mais imperativa com o aumento, nas últimas décadas, da fluidez obtida principalmente depois da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Atualmente, além de todo aparato tecnológico, concretizado no intenso uso das tecnologias da informação e das comunicações, a consecução da fluidez é possível através da logística industrial, e conseqüentemente, da formação de redes cada vez mais complexas e dinâmicas, em arranjos paradoxais de competitividade e cooperação. Em relação à logística industrial, sua atividade principal é o transporte, que no Brasil se corporifica, na sua maior parte, no transporte rodoviário de cargas. A melhor interpretação de toda essa dinâmica foi possível através da sistematização do estudo sobre o transporte rodoviário de cargas, sua logística e suas redes, em três cidades médias do interior paulista, que neste caso foram Presidente Prudente, São José do Rio Preto e Bauru. / The competitiveness intrinsical to the capitalism becomes more imperative with the increase, in the last decades, of the fluidity gotten mainly after the Second World War. Currently, beyond all technological apparatus, materialize in the intense use of the technologies of the information and the communications, the achievement of the fluidity is possible through the logistic industrial, and consequently, of the formation of more complexes and dynamics networks each time, in paradoxical arrangements of competitiveness and cooperation. Regarding the logistic industrial, its main activity is the transport, that is materialized in Brazil, in its biggest part, in the roadway transportation of goods. The best interpretation of all this dynamics was possible through the systematization of the study about the roadway transportation of goods, its logistic one and its networks, in three average cities of State of São Paulo (Presidente Prudente, São José do Rio Preto e Bauru).

Remote monitoring through the use of cameras is widely utilized for traffic operation, but has not been utilized widely for roadway maintenance operations. The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has implemented a new remote monitoring system, referred to as a Cloud-enabled Remote Video Streaming (CRVS) camera system for snow removal-related maintenance operations in the winter. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of the CRVS camera system in snow removal-related maintenance operations. This study was conducted in two parts: opinion surveys of maintenance station supervisors and an analysis on snow removal-related maintenance costs. The opinion surveys were performed in two methods: direct interviews and an online questionnaire. The responses to the opinion surveys mostly displayed positive reviews of the use of the CRVS cameras. On a scale of 1 (least effective) to 5 (most effective), the average overall effectiveness given by the station supervisors was 4.3 for both direct interviews and online questionnaire. On the online questionnaire, supervisors were asked to give an estimate of the reduction in expedition trips after having the CRVS camera installed. An expedition trip for this study was defined as a trip that was made to just check the roadways if snow-removal was necessary. The average of the responses received was calculated to be a 33 percent reduction in expedition trips. For the second part of this study, an analysis was performed on the snow removal-related maintenance cost data provided by UDOT to see if the installation of a CRVS camera had an effect in reducing expedition trips. Weather data of precipitation was also collected and analyzed; the analysis showed a close relation between precipitation patterns and patterns of snow removal-related maintenance costs of pairs of adjacent maintenance stations selected for analysis. This close relation in precipitation pattern and snow removal-related costs allowed a comparison of expedition cost of a maintenance station with a CRVS camera and a station without one. This expedition cost comparison was performed for 10 sets of maintenance stations within Utah. It was difficult to make any definitive inferences from the comparison of expedition costs over the years for which precipitation and expedition cost data were available; hence a statistical analysis was performed using the Mixed Model ANOVA. This analysis resulted in an average of 14 percent higher ratio of expedition costs at maintenance stations with a CRVS camera before the installation of the camera compared to the ratio of expedition costs after the installation of the camera. This difference was not proven to be statistically significant at the 95 percent confident level, but indicated that the installation of CRVS cameras was on the average helpful in reducing expedition costs and may be considered practically significant. It is recommended that more detailed and consistent maintenance cost records be prepared for accurate analysis of cost records for this type of study in the future.

In the event of a disaster, first responders must rapidly gain situational awareness about the environment in order to plan effective response operations. Unmanned ground vehicles are well suited for this task but often require a strong communication link to a remote ground station to effectively relay information. When considering an obstacle-rich environment, non-line-of-sight conditions and naive navigation strategies can cause substantial degradations in radio link quality. Therefore, this thesis incorporates an unmanned aerial vehicle as a radio repeating node and presents a path planning strategy to cooperatively navigate the vehicle team so that radio link health is maintained. This navigation technique is formulated as an A*-based search and this thesis presents the formulation of this path planner as well as an investigation into strategies that provide computational efficiency to the search process. The path planner uses predictions of radio signal health at different vehicle configurations to effectively navigate the vehicles and simulations have shown that the path planner produces favorable results in comparison to several conceivable naive radio repeating variants. The results also show that the radio repeating path planner has outperformed the naive variants in both simulated environments and in field testing where a Yamaha RMAX unmanned helicopter and a ground vehicle were used as the vehicle team. Since A* is a general search process, this thesis also presents a roadway detection algorithm using A* and edge detection image processing techniques. This algorithm can supplement unmanned vehicle operations and has shown favorable performance for images with well-defined roadways. / Master of Science