A Realistic Test of Hauer's Promising Site Identification Method
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2000-07-05
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Abstract:A part of the project "Accidents on Secondary Highways and Countermeasures." The prevailing methods of identifying hazardous locations use the collision history of a system to find the locations where more collisions have occurred. Problems with these prevailing methods include the tremendous burden on agencies to maintain a full and accurate collision data set, the inability to assess the safety of new or changed sites, and the fact that cost-effective countermeasures may not be available for high-collision sites. In 1996, Dr. Ezra Hauer suggested the use of five criteria to find "promising sites" with potential for productive countermeasure installation to address these problems. The objective of this research was to apply Hauer's ideas in a realistic test using an existing data set. Collision files from 1990 to 1997 for Buncombe County, North Carolina were used to apply the method. The county was selected because of the quality of its collision data, the amount of collision data easily retrievable, cooperative officials, and the proximity to the investigating universities. The application showed that an accurate, complete, and recent roadway inventory is pivotal to the implementation of Hauer's method. The method is data intensive to set up the first year, but isn't intensive to maintain in subsequent years. After the initial year, the majority of the effort is monitoring for changes in the system. Collision data for at least five years are desirable to begin. The addition of an intersection database would strengthen the application of the method. Once established, Hauer's method would likely be an efficient safety management system for a medium to large jurisdiction.
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