A Study of Accident Models for Highway Interchange Ramps

Although a good understanding of the relationship between highway traffic accidents and highway geometric features is fundamental in highway design and safety, the relationship is not well understood quantitatively. The overall goal of this paper is to formulate a reliable statistical model fitting to historical highway accident data. The model can be used to estimate the effect of road design elements on safety for the practical purposes of highway design applications. En route to achieving this goal, a number of specific research objectives were accomplished: investigate the major design elements affecting highway safety; review the existing modeling approaches in order to assess the relationship between safety and highway design features; and formulate a statistical model fitting to the accident data in order to estimate the interchange ramp junction accident frequency of rural highways.