THE USE OF TRAFFIC SIMULATION MODELS FOR ASSESSING THE SAFETY EFFECTS OF NEW TRAFFIC SCHEMES

Traffic management measures are often used to reduce traffic demand in urban areas to promote public transport and other modes such as walking and cycling and to improve the urban environment. Use of traffic simulation models is often made to test and assess the impacts of alternative traffic schemes. Experience shows that the criteria for selecting one alternative among others tested are based on functional parameters of the network such as speed, flow, vehicle delays at intersections, journey times and overall capacity of the network, but not on impacts on road safety. The paper presents the first results of a research effort that attempts to evaluate the safety effects of different traffic management measures in urban areas, by utilising the outputs from the model test runs. Suitable safety models that can be fed by the outputs are employed for this reason. The focus of the paper is on the methodological issues rather than on the results. The conclusions are encouraging with respect to the approach itself but stem questions as to the safety effect of the traffic schemes. For the covering abstract see ITRD E111131.