This thesis presents an analysis of the characteristics of malfunction flash incidents based on the Georgia Department of Transportation crash reporting database. Malfunction flash is an unintentional state of flash mode in intersection signal hardware. The flash mode is a signal indication of yellow/red or red/red flash. The flash mode can be due to many issues, such as hardware failure, damage, or storms. Crash reports are completed by police officers at the scene. After processing by the local jurisdiction reports are sent to GDOT for archiving and analysis. GDOT archives the reports in a PDF image format without editable text. This research will develop a procedure to convert the archived PDF reports to text files using optical character recognition (OCR) software. The developed procedure will extract the description paragraph of the incident from the PDF. The extracted descriptions may then be searched for useful information about the incident. The text files will be run through a filter for keywords, such as; "malfunction flash," "red/red flash," "yellow/red flash," and others. Incidents flagged by the keywords will be reexamined to determine if they are malfunction flash incidents. The 2006 GDOT incident data base will be used for this effort. From an original possible candidate list of 70,000 signalized intersection incidents malfunction incidents will be identified using this method. A statistical analysis will be completed seeking trends and important characteristics of malfunction incidents.

Loss of life resulting from road accidents incurs an immeasurable social and financial cost on society every year. Fortunately, the number of road injuries and fatalities has been reducing in most industralised countries for the past three decades due to the ongoing improvement of the engineering of roadways, the safety of vehicles and the changing attitudes and behaviour of drivers. Governments are constantly developing innovative tactics to further reduce the number of road accidents. One such initiative has been the adoption of marketing theory and specifically, advertising, by transport agencies in Australia and New Zealand into their road safety strategies. The Governments of both countries have proclaimed the campaigns to have been a success. However, the two road safety advertising campaigns have been studied by a number of researchers with conflicting results and conclusions about their efficacy. The studies have varied in form, estimation, outcomes, and data, making the comparison of their claims often very difficult. Policymakers and the public rely on the research of road safety experts when deciding on the best actions to undertake. However, the experts have each in turn argued that their approach was the most appropriate and that other researchers had done something wrong to reach their conclusions. The objective of this research was to identify a robust measure of road safety advertising effectiveness to take the confusion out of the ongoing debate. Using a single set of data and a range of advertising forms and road safety outcomes, previous evaluations of the New Zealand campaign were replicated and extended to discover which approach provided the best explanation of the value of road safety advertising. A further refinement was then made that addressed a potential problem with the original methods. Therefore, the research exhausted all the appropriate single and multiple equation approaches to the econometric evaluation of the effectiveness on road safety advertising using non-experimental data. The research shows that using one data source and a range of road safety outcomes, a robust and consistent measure of advertising effectiveness could not be identified among the approaches investigated. Furthermore, there is no objective way of knowing which of the models tested best reflects the actual situation. Therefore, it is claimed that a viable solution to this dilemma is to implement an experimental approach to identify the true effect of road safety advertising on driver behaviour.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, and, Centre for Automotive safety Research , 2004? / Includes bibliographical references (p. 396-420). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Melbourne, 2005. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 3, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-139).

Thesis (MSc (Geography and Environmental Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Botswana, a developing country in southern Africa, has not been spared the proliferating scourge of traffic accidents that is sweeping across the world. After HIV/AIDS, traffic accidents are the second largest cause of unnatural deaths in Botswana. The country is losing two per cent of its GDP every year to traffic accident costs. Furthermore, road safety is one of the major challenges the country will have to overcome in order to achieve its Vision 2016. This study investigates traffic accidents in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, for the years 2000 and 2005. The study analyses the characteristics of traffic accidents, examines their causes, maps the spatial distribution of traffic accidents for 2000 and 2005, and outlines the countermeasures government is instituting to curb accidents. The main data on traffic accidents used was extracted from the microcomputer accidents analysis package V5.0 (MAAP 5) obtained from the Traffic Police Division. Semi-structured interviews with transport and safety officers, traffic police and other stakeholders were conducted. The interviews were mainly about what government is doing to reduce the carnage caused by traffic accidents. Existing reports were also used as data sources. Microsoft Excel and ArcGIS 9.1 packages were used to do the analyses. The road casualties of drivers/riders are concentrated in the economically active age category of 15-64 years (95% for all casualties). In particular, the casualties are very high in the 20-39 age cohort with one third and three quarters of all casualties for 2000 and 2005 respectively. In addition, driver casualties by gender for the 20-39 age cohort show a high representation of males, namely 57% and 64% for 2000 and 2005 respectively.

Thesis on "Intelligent Transport Systems in the Czech Republic and their use" is focused on the analysis of intelligent transport systems, particularly for road transport in the Czech Republic. The aim of my work is to summarize the information and knowledge of ITS in the Czech Republic to introduce individual systems, their functions and to assess their contribution to road safety. Based on the evaluation of telematics systems used I suggest in the final part of the ITS elements in selected urban sprawl, particularly in the Czech Budejovice.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:00:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissVRM.pdf: 4422899 bytes, checksum: 6b3e5b0be1a5c4d7fe0a1136151d6b3d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-10-28 / This work presents a management tool that can be of great utility to private or governmental organizations, mainly the ones which are really considered to deal with the transit in a new, modern, efficient, efective and, over all, responsible way. For this, it makes use of modern computational techniques, as is the case of Geographic Information System - GIS, beyond the technique of benchmarking, an important basis of the Management of Total Quality. The Integrate Management System of Traffic Safety called SIG SET, developed for strategical level, produces ideas and concepts that take into account the management of transit security in a wide-ranging, sistemic and based on the information form. The SIG SET offers four databases and can operationally be implemented in integrated or modular form. For organizations with still a small structure, the implantation can start from the Database of Traffic accidents BDA, that uses a manager of relational database. However, with the evolution of this practice, the necessity of the implantation of a Space Database of Road System-BDSV arises , that own, amongst others, attributes of the interventions of the ways and volumes of traffic. In a subsequent stage, the georeferenced database of accidents can be implanted in software GIS (BDS). This new mentality of management, ripened and consolidated , the space database of benchmarking can be implemented (BDB). The BDB will be able to contain socioeconomic, social, cultural, human attributes, fleets of vehicles and accident rates of cities, states, regions or countries. The information of the databases must lead to the development of procedures that set up comparisons with pertinent referentials (benchmarking) and that have more positive security levels. This would stimulate the continuous improvement of road security, with the establishment of realistic and challenging goals of small, medium and long run. Based on the information generated by SIG SET, one can purpose interventions in the three traditional areas that compose the transit security: Education, Enforcement and Engineering; as well as to execute the verification of the effectiveness and efficiency of the same ones. The technique of benchmarking can periodically be carried out, applying the (re)evaluation of goals. The SIG SET unfolded for the operational level will produce, as a result, thematic reports and maps with the information of the databases produced. SIG SET is a tool indicated in the aid of taking decisions of governmental managing agencies and of organizations linked to the management of road security. An application of method SIG SET is presented in operational level, with the aim of exemplify its potentiality. / Este trabalho apresenta uma ferramenta de gestão que pode ser de grande utilidade a organizações, privadas ou governamentais, principalmente àquelas que realmente se propõem a tratar o trânsito de maneira nova, moderna, eficiente, eficaz e, sobretudo, responsável. Para tanto, faz uso de modernas técnicas computacionais, como é o caso de Sistemas de Informações Geográficas SIG, além da técnica de benchmarking, importante fundamento da Gestão de Qualidade Total. O Sistema Integrado de Gestão em Segurança de Tráfego SIG SET, desenvolvido para o nível estratégico, gera idéias e conceitos que levam em conta a gestão de segurança do trânsito de forma abrangente, sistêmica, fundamentada na informação. O SIG SET propõe quatro bancos de dados e pode ser operacionalmente implementado de forma integrada ou modular. Para as organizações com uma estrutura ainda pequena, a implantação pode começar pelo Banco de Dados de Acidentes de Trânsito BDA, que utiliza um gerenciador de banco de dados relacional. Porém, com a evolução dessa prática, surge a necessidade da implantação de um banco de dados espacial de sistema viário BDSV, que possui, dentre outros, atributos das intervenções das vias e volumes de tráfego. Em uma etapa subseqüente, o banco de dados de acidentes georeferenciado pode ser implantado em software SIG (BDS). Amadurecida e consolidada essa nova mentalidade de gestão, pode-se implementar o banco de dados espacial de benchmarking (BDB). O BDB poderá conter atributos socioeconômicos, sociais, culturais, humanos, frotas de veículos e índices de acidentes de cidades, estados, regiões ou países. As informações dos bancos de dados devem levar ao desenvolvimento de procedimentos que estabeleçam comparações com referenciais pertinentes (benchmarking) e que tenham níveis de segurança mais positivos. Isso estimularia a melhoria contínua da segurança viária, com o estabelecimento de metas realistas e desafiadoras de pequeno, médio e longo prazos. Baseando-se nas informações geradas pelo SIG SET, pode-se propor intervenções nas três áreas tradicionais que compõem a segurança de trânsito: Educação, Esforço Legal e Engenharia; como também executar a verificação da eficácia e eficiência das mesmas. A técnica de benchmarking poderá ser realizada periodicamente, aplicando-se a (re)avaliação das metas. O SIG SET desdobrado para o nível operacional produzirá, como resultado, relatórios e mapas temáticos com as informações dos bancos de dados criados. O SIG SET é uma ferramenta indicada no auxílio da tomada de decisões de órgãos gestores governamentais e de organizações ligadas ao gerenciamento de segurança viária. É apresentada uma aplicação do método SIG SET, em nível operacional, com o intuito de exemplificar a sua potencialidade.

Cyclists as vulnerable road users are oftentimes unprotected with exposed human body, can fall easily and sustain serious injuries when encountered collisions, especially with motorists. At roundabouts, accident reduction rate for cyclists is rather uncertain or sometimes less favorable compared to other road users (e.g. motorists, pedestrians). This thesis focuses on advancing the understanding of traffic safety issues for cyclists at roundabouts by identifying concerns faced by cyclists and evaluating their designs to find out which configuration has high or higher safety level towards cyclists. The research approach adopted in this work includes a wide review of relevant literature on cyclist safety and roundabouts and the implementation of empirical research, the latter was carried out through a Case Study in Norrköping city by obtaining cyclist related accident data from Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition database to identify roundabouts with high cyclist-related accidents in the city assisted with PTV Visum Safety tool and fetching traffic volume from city network model operated by Norrköping Municipality for each identified roundabout. The main findings from this research conclude that single-lane roundabouts with separated cycle paths in high traffic volume setting provide better or higher safety performance for cyclists compared to other roundabout configurations.

Små barn i förskole- och lågstadieåldern behöver utrymmen att leka och röra sig på för att utvecklas, och dessa behov behöver vägas in i samhällsplaneringen. Tyvärr finns det tecken på att hänsynen till barns behov av plats för lek och rörelsefrihet har tappat i prioritet inom stadsplanering de senaste decennierna. Exempelvis visar forskning att barns tillgång till allmänna platser att leka på i svenska städer generellt sett har minskat. Även barns möjligheter att röra sig fritt i svenska städer har kommit att begränsas alltmer, framförallt av den alltjämt ökande biltrafiken. Det har även konstaterats att allt färre barn går eller cyklar själva till skolan och att cyklandet på fritiden har minskat. Syftet med den här studien har varit att undersöka barns möjligheter att leka och röra sig fritt i stadsmiljöer. Studien har avgränsats till en fallstudie av stadsmiljön Falun-Centrum. Det är ett område på ca 2,5 km2 som är definerat sedan tidigare av Falu kommun och inrymmer Faluns stadskärna med centrumhandel, parker, vägar, bostadsområden, förskolor, skolor etc. Information har samlats in genom en postenkät skickad till vårdnadshavare till 100 barn inom åldersspannet äldre än ett och yngre än elva år, bosatta inom fallstudieområdet. 100 barn motsvarar ca 20 % av det totala antalet i området. Resultaten baseras på 53 svar; 39 svar på postenkäten och 14 svar genom kompletterande telefonintervjuer. Svaren visar att inom Falun-Centrum upplever respondenterna att deras barn har relativt god tillgång på platser att leka på i sitt närområde. Fältinventering av platserna visade att många av platserna var tillräckligt rymliga för att tillåta vidlyftig lek och hade grön och varierad terräng, vilket är bra. Vad gäller trafiksäkerhetsaspekter visar resultaten däremot att det finns stora hinder för barnens möjligheter att röra sig självständigt p g a brist på trafiksäkerhet. Sammanfattningsvis innebär det för barnen att de generellt sett har bra platser att leka på i sitt närområdet (även om det finns undantag), men att de inte kan röra sig självständigt till platserna p g a trafikfaror. Bristen på trafiksäkerhet innebär också att de har dåliga förutsättningar att ta sig till, upptäcka och lära känna nya platser i sitt närområde. I förlängningen hämmar det utvecklingen av deras geografiska förståelse för den omgivande stadsmiljön. Det minskar också deras möjligheter att möta och lära känna andra personer i området vilket försämrar den sociala hållbarheten i staden. / Small children in the age around two to ten needs space to play and move around to be able to develop, and these needs should be considered in the spatial planning practice. Unfortunely there are signs that childrens need for places to play and move around have lost in priority in spatial planning practice in Sweden the last decades. For example research shows that childrens access to public places to play at in swedish citys is reduced. Also childrens possibilities to move around freely in swedish cities are continuously reduced due to increasing traffic. It has also been noted that fewer children walk or bicycle on there own to school and bicycling in the spare time has also been declining.    The aim of this study has been to exmine childrens possibilities to play and move around independently in urban environment. The study is restricted to a casestudy of the city-environment Falun-Centrum. That is an area of ca 2,5 km2 predefined by Falu kommun. It contains the city-center with shops, parks, roads, residential areas, kindergardens, schools etc. Information has been collected by a postal survey sent to guardians of 100 children (about 20 % of the total number in the area) that were older than one year and younger than eleven years during 2017 living in the casestudy-area. The results are based on 53 answers; 39 answers to the postal survey and 14 answers to additional interwievs over telephone. The answers show that in Falun-Centrum the respondents experience that their children have quite good access to places to play at in their vicinity. Field inventory of the places showed that many of the places were spacious enough to allow vast playing and had green and varied terrain, which is good. Though, the results about the safety aspects in traffic shows that there are a lot of traffic hazards that prevent the children to move around independently in the area. In summary it means that the children in general have good places to play at in there vicinity (although there are exeptions), but that they can not go there on their own due to traffic hazards. The lack of traffic safety also means that the conditions for them to go to, explore and get to know new places in their surroundings are severely limited. In the long run it limits the development of their geographichal imagination of their urban surroundings. It also limits their opporunities to meet, get to know and understand other persons in the city. In the long run it inhibits the urban social sustainability.

The purpose of this thesis was to determine which perceptual cues drivers use to identify pedestrians that may constitute a risk in traffic. Methods chosen were recordings of pedestrian behaviour in Linköping by means of a stationary video camera as well as video camera mounted in a car. Interviews on the recordings from the mobile camera were conducted with taxi drivers and driving instructors. Results include that drivers not only react to pedestrians they believe will behave in a dangerous way, but also react to pedestrians that probably not will behave in such a way, but where the possibility still exists. The study concluded that it was not possible to determine how risky a pedestrian is considered to be by only using behavioural factors such as trajectory or position on the sidewalk, and distance. It is necessary also to include environmental factors, mainly where the pedestrian and car are positioned in relation to the side of the road, so that the behaviour of the pedestrian can be interpreted.