Conflict Observation in Theory and in Practice

Abstract

The danger of traffic is commonly determined by the occurrence of accidents. This paper presents some of the history of alternative measures for describing traffic hazards: the measurement of so-called conflicts. In addition to discussing some theoretical problems concerning conflict definitions, it also summarizes the results of a series of research projects aimed at the development of a conflict observation technique for the estimation of the safety of pedestrians in residential areas. The reliability, practical applicability and predictive validity of the developed technique proved to be satisfactory. It is concluded that the use of this technique seems to be justified for those situations in which accident rates are relatively low; e.g. in residential areas. This is not only true because of the strong relationship between serious conflicts and accidents, but also because other potential alternative indicators for the estimation of traffic hazards often used in practice (such as traffic volumes or subjective estimation of risk by residents), had little success in predicting accidents. At the end of the paper some of the results of the practical application of the technique developed are discussed. Perhaps the face-validity and concurrent validity of the results of these applications of the observation technique are even more convincing than the proven predictive validity. For the covering abstract of the conference see TRIS 393142. (Author/TRRL)