The freeway should be the safest type of highway because of its highest design standard. However, in China, the well publicized freeways' crashes particularly the ones involved multiple fatalities certainly do not give the general public that positive impression. This paper will present the results of the studies conducted by Beijing University of technology on the safety of freeways. Based on the data collected at several freeways in China, it is clear that the current freeway operation is not as safe as it should be. In comparison to other developed countries, the freeway traffic fatality rate is much higher. Through detailed substantial data analysis, this paper examined the distributions of crash type, crash frequency by time and space, crash violation and crash causes. Many of unique characteristics of traffic crashes on freeways in China were discussed. For the covering abstract see ITRD E138091. This paper is available from http://www.ictct.org/workshops/07-Beijing/61ZhongLiande210220.pdf.
Abstract