TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the uniqueness of crash injury severity in freeway tunnels
T2 - A comparative study in Guizhou, China
AU - Zhou, Zichu
AU - Meng, Fanyu
AU - Song, Cancan
AU - Sze, N. N.
AU - Guo, Zhongyin
AU - Ouyang, Nan
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China , Grant No. 7177113 ; National Key R&D Program of China , Grant Nos. 2018YFC0807000 and 2019YFC0810705 ; Department of Transportation, Shandong , China under Grant 2019B32 ; Department of Transportation, Guizhou , China under Grant 2020-141-022 . We would also like to acknowledge the Guizhou Transport Information and Emergency Control Center for providing the crash database.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant No. 7177113; National Key R&D Program of China, Grant Nos. 2018YFC0807000 and 2019YFC0810705; Department of Transportation, Shandong, China under Grant 2019B32; Department of Transportation, Guizhou, China under Grant 2020-141-022. We would also like to acknowledge the Guizhou Transport Information and Emergency Control Center for providing the crash database.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Introduction: With the rapid development of transportation infrastructures in precipitous areas, the mileage of freeway tunnels in China has been mounting during the past decade. Provided the semi-constrained space and the monotonous driving environment of freeway tunnels, safety concerns still remain. This study aims to investigate the uniqueness of the relationships between crash severity in freeway tunnels and various contributory factors. Method: The information of 10,081 crashes in the entire freeway network of Guizhou Province, China in 2018 is adopted, from which a subset of 591 crashes in tunnels is extracted. To address spatial variations across various road segments, a two-level binary logistic approach is applied to model crash severity in freeway tunnels. A similar model is also established for crash severity on general freeways as a benchmark. Results: The uniqueness of crash severity in tunnels mainly includes three aspects: (a) the road-segment-level effects are quantifiable with the environmental factors for crash severity in tunnels, but only exist in the random effects for general freeways; (b) tunnel has a significantly higher propensity to cause severe injury in a crash than other locations of a freeway; and (c) different influential factors and levels of contributions are found to crash severity in tunnels compared with on general freeways. Factors including speed limit, tunnel length, truck involvement, rear-end crash, rainy and foggy weather and sequential crash have positive contributions to crash severity in freeway tunnels. Practical applications: Policy implications for traffic control and management are advised to improve traffic safety level in freeway tunnels.
AB - Introduction: With the rapid development of transportation infrastructures in precipitous areas, the mileage of freeway tunnels in China has been mounting during the past decade. Provided the semi-constrained space and the monotonous driving environment of freeway tunnels, safety concerns still remain. This study aims to investigate the uniqueness of the relationships between crash severity in freeway tunnels and various contributory factors. Method: The information of 10,081 crashes in the entire freeway network of Guizhou Province, China in 2018 is adopted, from which a subset of 591 crashes in tunnels is extracted. To address spatial variations across various road segments, a two-level binary logistic approach is applied to model crash severity in freeway tunnels. A similar model is also established for crash severity on general freeways as a benchmark. Results: The uniqueness of crash severity in tunnels mainly includes three aspects: (a) the road-segment-level effects are quantifiable with the environmental factors for crash severity in tunnels, but only exist in the random effects for general freeways; (b) tunnel has a significantly higher propensity to cause severe injury in a crash than other locations of a freeway; and (c) different influential factors and levels of contributions are found to crash severity in tunnels compared with on general freeways. Factors including speed limit, tunnel length, truck involvement, rear-end crash, rainy and foggy weather and sequential crash have positive contributions to crash severity in freeway tunnels. Practical applications: Policy implications for traffic control and management are advised to improve traffic safety level in freeway tunnels.
KW - Crash injury severity
KW - Freeway tunnel
KW - Multilevel model
KW - Road safety
KW - Unobserved heterogeneity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106257202&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jsr.2021.02.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jsr.2021.02.008
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85106257202
SN - 0022-4375
VL - 77
SP - 105
EP - 113
JO - Journal of Safety Research
JF - Journal of Safety Research
ER -