As China quickly builds its unprecedented expressway system, freight transportation is becoming a huge market for the Chinese economic development. By the end of year 2002, about 78 per cent of freight transportation was carried out by highways, and more than 39,000 new heavy trucks started operation - an increase of 38 per cent compared with the number of trucks in 2001. While making enormous contribution to the booming economic development, the increasing truck traffic also brings the sharp increase in highway crashes, particularly traffic fatalities on expressways. About two-third of the total annual crashes in China currently involved freight trucks, which is much higher than the reported five-percent in the United States. Some expressways are even experiencing as high as 90 per cent of freight truck crashes at night. Improving truck traffic safety has become an urgent task for the government and transportation professionals. To reduce the number of heavy vehicle crashes, it is important to investigate how, where, and when crashes occurred on highways. This paper presents a study of crash data analysis on a heavily traveled expressway in China. Following the official crash classification listed in table 1, the results from the three-year crash database show that about 38 per cent of all severe single truck crashes were caused by driver fatigue, and 25 per cent by speeding. Vehicle mechanical problems counted for 23 per cent of all single truck crashes. These results highlight the urgency to establish a uniform standard for trucking industry such as the maximum continuous driving hours, drivers' training, and vehicle inspection. The data analysis also reveal that rear-end collision is the most common type of crash with multiple vehicles (including at least one heavy truck). For single vehicle crash, running-off roadway counts about 80 per cent of all single truck accidents. The newly published Chinese Highway Traffic Safety Law reinforces the financial responsibility of vehicle's owner. However, the three-year crash data shows that about one-third of truck drivers involved in traffic crash had no basic insurance, which demonstrates one of many serious loopholes in the rapidly expanding trucking industry. As the market for trucking transportation increases exponentially in recent years in China, so does the number of severe truck traffic crashes. Based on the results of the analysis, several safety improvement strategies are proposed in this paper (A). For the covering abstract of the conference see E217780.
Samenvatting