This paper was presented at session 32 - safety. The first stage in statcon, which is the program to control intersections throughout the state of Victoria by stop signs, giveaway signs and traffic signals, thus creating a system of priority routes, was known as metcon, the metropolitan intersection control program. This paper presents some initial results of a study of the effectiveness of the system in reducing numbers of particular types of accidents at several classes of intersections. A sample of about 30 per cent of all casualty accidents which occurred within the Melbourne metropolitan area was extracted from the state traffic accident records for periods of 12 months before and 12 months after implementation of metcon. 'Before' and 'after' comparisons were made of the intersection casualty accidents using both mid-block metropolitan accidents and urban provincial city intersection accidents as control groups. A highly significant reduction in the numbers of right-angle casualty intersection accidents was experienced at those types of intersections where fixed priority had been introduced thus indicating that metcon has been highly effective as an intersection accident counter-measure with considerable scope for further improvements as the priority network is extended. The number of the covering abstract of the conference is IRRD no. 239340.
Samenvatting