• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.45-60
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• 2003

A median is a safety feature most commonly used to separate opposing traffic on a divided highway. In designing highways, the selection and installation of a median can be a critical part from a safety viewpoint because road crossing accidents are definitely more serious than other accidents. In regard to the important function of the median. the proper countermeasure ought to have been provided and thorough study should have been carried out. In this paper, traffic accident data are analyzed to examine the accident reduction effect of the median, which are gathered from all over 4-lane national roads in Korea. The traffic accident data were categorized into two groups by the existence of a median. For more effective analysis, the data have been classified by accident type, severity. and occurrence time. To compare the effectiveness of median installation, not only the accident frequency but also the accident severity, EPDO. and the occupancy rate of specific accidents have been used as a mode of effectiveness. The analysis of the effectiveness of medians shows that both the accident frequency and the accident severity could decrease by providing a median. Also the section where a median was supplied showed the improvement of overall safety through fewer serious and fatal crashes as well as fewer head-on crashes. Therefore, conclusions can be drawn from results of this study that the median installation is an important means to increase the safety of over 4-lane national roads. This study is expected to provide the reasonability of the median installation by identifying the reduction of traffic accident after the median installation and to play a major role in selecting sections where the median is to be offered.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.79-87
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• 2015

PURPOSES: According to accident statistics for road built in 2004, the ratio of accidents on frozen roads to normal roads is 0.9%, whereas the fatality ratio is 2.7%. The risk of accidents on frozen roads is very high. Measures taken every year to prevent traffic accidents of frozen roads in the winter season are still insufficient. Additionally, measures have been established mainly on rural roads. Therefore, for urban roads, analyses and measures to prevent accidents are lacking. In this study, data on accidents on frozen roads was used to search for the causes behind these accidents and measures to reduce accidents have been recommended. METHODS: In this study, collected data from the TAMS (Traffic Accident Management System), which were collected by the Seoul National Police Agency was used. The data were divided into vehicle, people, and condition of road. The analytical model used here was the Logistic Regression Model, which is frequently used for traffic safety and accident analysis. This study uses the odds ratio analysis to search for variables related to frozen road traffic accidents in each category. A total of 18 out of 47 variables were found to be the causes of accidents. RESULTS: From the results of the comparative analysis of 18 variables, the category of the condition of the road was found to be the most critical. Contrary to expectations, more accidents occurred in clear weather than in other conditions. Accidents on bridges occurred frequently, and its odds ratio was the highest compared with other road types. When BPT is operated, the probability of accidents on frozen roads is lower than in general conditions, and accidents occurred frequently on roads with less than four lanes. CONCLUSIONS : Based on the results of this study, suggestions for reducing the risk of future domestic road accidents in freezing conditions are indicated as follows. First, it is necessary to perform a technical review of the urban road traffic accidents caused by frozen roads. Second, it is necessary to establish criteria for the study of the road environment based on the major causes of road accidents on frozen roads. Third, improvements in urban road environmental factors should be made.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.127-134
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• 2016

PURPOSES : Visibility of lanes on the road improves as retro-reflectivity rises. This helps reduce traffic accidents at nighttime or in bad weather. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of improved visibility on reduction of traffic accidents when the color of the lane in the median of the highway was changed from yellow to white. METHODS : In order to evaluate the accident reduction effect of the white left shoulder line, Hauer (1997)'s Comparison-Group method was chosen as an analysis methodology. The JungBu-2 highway, which is equipped with the white left shoulder line and is in trial operation, was chosen as a target for analysis. Data of accidents for 10 months before and after installation was collected and analyzed. In addition to the number of accidents, the types of accidents were classified into nighttime accidents, accidents in bad weather, and median collisions. The accident reduction effect of improved visibility of lanes was analyzed. RESULTS : The analysis' finding showed that installation of the white left shoulder line decreased the number of accidents by 28%. Moreover, improvement in visibility was effective in reducing nighttime accidents by 67.63%, accidents in bad weather by 55.19%, and median collisions by 48.55%. CONCLUSIONS : Based on the analysis' results in this study, it was concluded that white left shoulder line on the freeway contributed to reduce traffic accidents, especially nighttime accidents, accidents in bad weather, and median collisions.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.118-127
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• 2009

This study tries to develop model in order to assess personal factors of senior traffic accidents that are widely recognized as one of the social problems. For the current practice. it gathers data (Simulation & Questionnaire Survey) of KOTSA and conducts Poisson and Negative Binomial Regression Analysis to develop traffic accident severity model. The results show that elderly drivers' accidents are mainly affected by attentiveness selection, velocity prediction ability and attentiveness distribution ability in a positive(+) way. Second, non-senior drivers' accidents are also positively(+) influenced by attentiveness selection, velocity prediction, distance perception, attentiveness distribution ability and attentiveness diversion ability. Therefore, influencing factors of senior and non-senior drivers to vehicle accidents are different. This eventually poses a indication that preliminary education for car accident prevention should be implemented based up[n the distinction between senior drivers and non-senior drivers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.57-67
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• 2011

This study has been conducted to provide the basic materials about the occurrence structures, causes and choice of treatments of the traffic accident offenders' PTSD(Posttraumatic Stress Disorder). The results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, accident offenders', not victims', PTSD conditions, which has been only estimated until now, are measured by nationwide questioning survey. Second, accident offenders' changes of driving attitude after accidents could be typed by factors analysis in the 20 driving situations closely connected to the occurrence of traffic accidents. Third, by the t-test, the difference of driving attitudes in primary driving situations according to existence of PTSD is distinguished. Six driving situations, which are found significant by t-test, are applied to structural equation. So the variables related to PTSD and the models which analyze the attitude changes of driving are constructed. This study provides the basic materials to help the reduction and prevention of the occurrence of PTSD.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.104-113
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• 2010

Domestic insurance claims were statistically investigated to analyze the elderly driver's accident patterns and injury types in side impact crashes. Medical treatment records and accident vehicle damage photos have been surveyed for 5,419 cases. The results of our statistical analysis showed that the thorax injury risk of the elderly drive group is 8.8 and 4.0 times higher than that of the young and middle age group respectively. Diagnosis showed that most thorax injuries were caused by rib fracture. The head injury risk of the elderly female driver group seemed to be higher than that of the younger female driver group, however, statistical test has not been conducted because of the lack of number of samples for elderly female accident.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.118-123
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• 2011

This study deals with the traffic accidents of the arterial link sections. The purpose is to comparatively analyze the characteristics and models by accident type using the data of 24 arterial links in Cheongju. In pursuing the above, this study gives particular emphasis to modeling such the accidents as the side-right-angle collision, rear-end collision and side-swipe collision. The main results are the followings. First, six accident models are developed, which are all analyzed to be statistically significant. Second, the models are comparatively evaluated using the common and specific variables by accident type.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.31-40
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• 2011

Generally, inappropriate driving conditions including geometric, traffic environmental, and driver psychological problems may be critical reasons of traffic accidents. Under this circumstance, various types of facilities have been installed to improve traffic safety by itself or as a set consisting of several other traffic safety facilities. In general, traffic accidents occur by several reasons combined rather than only a single reason, and thus the safety effect of the safety facilities cannot be simply analyzed with only a single improvement. For the study, traffic accident data on the roadway segments of interest are collected along with field survey data. For the analysis, various alternative analysis methods were evaluated in terms of assessing accident reduction from various types of traffic safety improvements. Among the alternative methods tested including simple before-and-after evaluation method, before-and-after evaluation yoked comparison, and Comparison Group (C-G) method, it was found that the C-G method is the most effective method for analyzing the traffic safety improvement effect. Adopting the C-G method, both single and multiple safety improvements were analyzed. The results from this study can potentially be applied to decide the best type of treatments to improve traffic safety as well as to measure the accident reduction effects from the treatments.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.201-212
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• 2017

PURPOSES : The objective of this study is to identify the characteristics affecting traffic accidents that have occurred in 564 industrial complexes nationwide from 2011 to 2015. METHODS : The traffic accidents were specified using various factors such as industrial complex type (national VS. general), industrial complex degradation (old VS. non-old), location of complex (capital VS. non-capital), and traffic law violation (speeding, signal violation, and median invasion). The average number of crashes and accident ratio (fatal, severe, and both) in terms of characteristics of industrial complexes were calculated. With a sample of crashes of the industrial complexes for 5 years, statistical significances were tested to analyze and compare the differences based on industrial complex and traffic law characteristics using parametric and non-parametric methods. RESULTS : From statistical results, it is observed that the crash frequency occurring in old industrial complexes is three times higher than that in non-old industrial complexes. Old industrial complexes located in a capital area, old national industrial complexes, and old general industrial complexes are considerably related to higher crash frequency, but the fatal accident ratio appeared to have no statistical difference across industrial complex characteristics. Severe crashes are more likely to occur in non-old industrial complexes on an average. CONCLUSIONS : It is necessary to eliminate potential threats to roads and traffic in the same manner as illegal parking in industrial complexes through the restoration of old industrial complexes. To improve the efficiency of road infrastructure, efforts should be made to improve traffic safety in accordance with industrial characteristics such as planning and operation of relevant local government programs.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.43-49
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• 2010

This study deals with the traffic accident of the Cheongju arterial link sections. The purpose of the study is to develop the traffic accident model. In pursuing the above, this study gives particular attentions to developing the ZAM(zero-altered model) model using the accident data of arterial roads devided by 322 small link sections. The main results analyzed by ZIP(zero inflated Poisson model) and ZINB(zero inflated negative binomial model) which are the methods of ZAM, are as follows. First, the evaluation of various developed models by the Vuong statistic and t statistic for overdispersion parameter ${\alpha}$ shows that ZINB is analyzed to be optimal among Poisson, NB, ZIP(zero-inflated Poisson) and ZINB regression models. Second, ZINB is evaluated to be statistically significant in view of t, ${\rho}$ and ${\rho}^2$ (0.63) values compared to other models. Finally, the accident factors of ZINB models are developed to be the traffic volume(ADT), number of entry/exit and length of median. The traffic volume(ADT) and the number of entry/exit are evaluated to be the '+' factors and the length of median to be '-' factor of the accident.