• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.155-166
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• 2009

Road design safety assessment by existing tools and methods have normally been examined by expert judgements using design documents and on-site inspections. The existing methods, however, have two main problems such as insufficiency of objectiveness and inability to measure effects of accident countermeasures. This paper studies ways to develop a road safety assessment system through reviewing the IHSDM developed in USA. The crash prediction module of IHSDM calculate accident frequency and rate of roadway segments using accident prediction models and accident modification factors for safety evaluation. The methodology of evaluation and development of accident modification factors somewhat overcome the problems of the existing methods. In spite of these advantages, IHSDM could not relevantly reflect characteristics of domestic rural roadways since it overestimate the number of accidents and rate of korean rural roadways. Especially, IHSDM may not evaluate or consider land use patterns of Korean roadways, and futhermore, original environment on base conditions used to develop IHSDM may not be different from ours. The user requirements being developed for a road safety assessment system for Korean roadways include enhanced flexibility and diversity of data input-output processes.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.163-175
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• 2002

Fatalities from traffic accidents constitute one of the major health issues as well as safety ones in Korea. It has been reported that traffic accident is affected by the combined effects of road. vehicle. and human factors. Over the past few decades, a number of studies have been conducted to find the impact of road geometric factors on traffic safety. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of road geometric factors on traffic safety on Korean expressways. Detailed geometric design data were available from Korea Highway Corporation. Five-year traffic accident data on Honam expressway were collected and analyzed. It was found that following geometric factors influence traffic safety on expressways : radius of curve, curve length, and length of straight section. Furthermore, the existence of I.C. turned out to have a significant impact on traffic safety level. Based on the data analysis several multiple regression forms that relate traffic accident frequencies and geometric factors on expressways are developed.