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Publication Number:  FHWA-HRT-13-088    Date:  May 2014
Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-13-088
Date: May 2014

 

Photographic Data Extraction Feasibility and Pilot Study in Support of Roadside Safety and Roadway Departure Research

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FOREWORD

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has identified roadway departure as a focus area because roadway departure crashes consistently contribute to more than half of the fatal crashes on U.S. roadways. Access to relevant data is critical to understanding the causes of roadway departure and mitigating the consequences. This study seeks to maximize available vehicle and infrastructure crashworthiness data sources and repurpose them to answer questions of interest to FHWA, such as the identification of barrier types and end treatments subjected to specific crash conditions previously unreported in the crashworthiness datasets.

This study is part of a series of low-cost in-house efforts to make full use of existing data resources to understand the roadway departure problem. Existing data will be extrapolated and interpolated to determine reliable results and identify missing data. This report represents an ongoing effort in roadway departure analysis.

Monique R. Evans
Director, Office of Safety
Research and Development

Notice

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document.

The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers’ names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.

Quality Assurance Statement

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provides high-quality information to serve Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes public understanding. Standards and policies are used to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of its information. FHWA periodically reviews quality issues and adjusts its programs and processes to ensure continuous quality improvement.

 

Technical Report Documentation Page

1. Report No.

FHWA-HRT-13-088

2. Government Accession No. 3 Recipient's Catalog No.
4. Title and Subtitle

Photographic Data Extraction Feasibility and Pilot Study in Support of Roadside Safety and Roadway Departure Research

5. Report Date

May 2014

6. Performing Organization Code
7. Author(s)

Ana Maria Eigen, D.Sc., Rafael Olarte Valdivieso, Ph.D., and Amir Ahrari, Ph.D.

8. Performing Organization Report No.

 

9. Performing Organization Name and Address

Federal Highway Administration
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101-2296

10. Work Unit No. (TRAIS)

11. Contract or Grant No.
12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address

Office of Safety Research and Development
Federal Highway Administration
6300 Georgetown Pike
McLean, VA 22101-2296

13. Type of Report and Period Covered

Technical Report

14. Sponsoring Agency Code

 

15. Supplementary Notes

Special thanks to the Highway Safety Information System Laboratory, operated under Contract DTFH61-11- C-00050, for making the services of Dr. Olarte Valdivieso and Dr. Ahrari available for this study.

16. Abstract

This work represents the first phase of an ongoing low-cost in-house effort to perform data analysis, optimize internal data gathering in an informed fashion, make data requests to organizations, and obtain needed information. The work also calls on the definition of “roadway departure” prepared by a 2008 working group assembled by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety. The group provided a verbal and data definition in order to extract data and relate the data to the fatal crash population.

 

Many applications exist for crashworthiness data and untapped resources from previously unqueried sources.(1) The FHWA roadway departure definition provided a Fatality Analysis Reporting System data approach; however, other National Highway Traffic Safety Administration datasets exist with real-time or near real-time data.(2) One such dataset is the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study (NMVCCS).(3,4) The present work pursues photographic data extracted from the NMVCCS. This report provides further discussion regarding the surrogates adopted in framing roadway departure.

17. Key Words

Roadway Departure, FARS, NASS CDS, GES, NMVCCS, Panoramic view software

18. Distribution Statement

No restrictions. This document is available to the public through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161

19. Security Classification
(of this report)

Unclassified

20. Security Classification
(of this page)

Unclassified

21. No. of Pages

71

22. Price
Form DOT F 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed page authorized

SI* (Modern Metric) Conversion Factors

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2: RESULTS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DATA EXTRACTION FEASIBILITY STUDY

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC DATA EXTRACTION FEASIBILITY PILOT STUDY

CHAPTER 4: FUTURE CONSIDERATION AND PILOT STUDY SUMMARIZATION

APPENDIX A: PHOTOGRAPHIC CATALOG OF ROADSIDE ELEMENTS

APPENDIX B: DATA EXTRACTION SPREADSHEET

APPENDIX C: COMPLETE SUMMARY STATISTICS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CDS Crashworthiness Data System
EAR Exploratory Advanced Research
FARS Fatality Analysis Reporting System
FHWA Federal Highway Administration
GM® General Motors®
HBA Hinged breakaway
LBSS Longitudinal Barrier Special Study
NASS National Automotive Sampling System
NCHRP National Cooperative Highway Research Program
NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
NMVCCS National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study
SGT Single guardrail terminal
SKT Sequential kinking terminal
TAS Terminal anchor section

 

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