Engineering solutions to enhance traffic safety performance on two-lane highways

Abstract

Improving two-lane highway traffic safety conditions is of practical importance to the traffic system, which has attracted significant research attention within the last decade. Many cost-effective and proactive solutions such as low-cost treatments and roadway safety monitoring programs have been developed to enhance traffic safety performance under prevailing conditions. This study presents research perspectives achieved from the Highway Safety Enhancement Project (HSEP) that assessed safety performance on two-lane highways in Beijing, China. Potential causal factors are identified based on proposed evaluation criteria, and primary countermeasures are developed against inferior driving conditions such as sharp curves, heavy gradients, continuous downgrades, poor sight distance, and poor clear zones. Six cost-effective engineering solutions were specifically implemented to improve two-lane highway safety conditions, including (1) traffic sign replacement, (2) repainting pavement markings, (3) roadside barrier installation, (4) intersection channelization, (5) drainage optimization, and (6) sight distance improvement. The effectiveness of these solutions was examined and evaluated based on Empirical Bayes (EB) models. The results indicate that the proposed engineering solutions effectively improved traffic safety performance by significantly reducing crash occurrence risks and crash severities.