The traffic accidents problem disturbs the majority of people all over the world because of the harmful effects they may have on them. These effects could be summarized in loss of life, health damage that may cause handicap and damage to their properties. Therefore, researches all over the world were conducted to study traffic accidents to explain their causes and reduce their harmful effects; this study tries to model the traffic accidents to explain their causes. High speeds increase the probability of accidents occurrence and the severity of them, so traffic accidents that occur on rural roads are assumed to be more dangerous and have more victims, cost and damage than those on urban roads with relatively lower speeds. Therefore, this work concentrates on rural road traffic accidents as its specific field of study. This research aims to evaluate the safety level on the Ring Road, This objective is achieved by identification of the road characteristics which have the major effects on the road safety, the Field Inspection Survey which include four main tasks; identification of locations of major pavement defects, inventory of defective joints on bridge sections; inventory of damaged traffic safety barriers and signs, and Pavement Condition Index (PCI) survey, all distress types were recorded in a special form. The field data were then coded into a computer program for computing the PCI values. The structural assessment of the existing pavement was carried out based on the AASHTO Guide for Design of Pavement Structures. Comparison between the existing pavement structures against the required pavement strength to sustain the design ESAL. Structural overlays were recommended in pavement areas that lack capacity to withstand the design ESAL. Accident traffic data, provided by the "General Authority of Roads, Bridges and Land Transport, GARBLT", are used to identify the black spots and segments at which road characteristics data are collected, the road characteristics data are processed to calibrate different types of traffic accident models.
Statistical analysis was then conducted to estimate Number of Accidents (NA) as a function of surface indicators. Also, a statistical based model was developed to predict the NA and PCI from the road characteristics of the Ring Road. Research results can be used to assist decision makers to develop the road network to be more safe and minimize the accidents rate. |
