Main objective of the research project was the analysis of the influence of road surface condition on the accident situation considering surrounding infrastructure and traffic conditions. Potential for improvement for the safety management of road infrastructure should be identified by combining data and results from two network analysis procedures. These are the survey and assessment of road condition (ZEB) and the network safety management (NSM). Data from three federal states regarding the motorway as well as the federal and state highway network was processed through new aggregation and investigation methods on a common analytical network. Descriptive statistics for accident situation and road surface condition were performed as pilot tests. Different analytical methods for quantifying the influence of the road surface on road safety were compared and central boundary conditions were defined (e. g. section length, distribution parameters of the surface condition). Accident prediction models were analyzed for potential correlations between road surface (e. g. friction coefficient, unevenness), infrastructure attributes (e. g. number of lanes, cross and longitudinal slope, curvature), traffic volumes and road accidents. There are significant results for the influence of friction on wet surface accident occurrence of driving accidents and accidents in longitudinal traffic on federal and state highways. There are no consistent results for other road surface parameters so far. Based on the models a generalizable procedure was developed that predicts avoidable economic accident costs per year resulting from changes in the friction coefficient under consideration of the local infrastructure and traffic situation. The newly developed procedure allows a bi-directional exchange of data and results between the two before mentioned network analysis procedures (ZEB & NSM) and in this way supports the road maintenance management. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting