Influence of pavement condition on crash rates (Case study: Rasht- Bandar Anzali)

Pavement condition has been known as a key factor in pavement management system (PMS) related to ride quality, but it is less clear how xactly pavement conditions are related to traffic crashes. These crashes are often severe and many involve at least some level of injury due to the nature of the collisions. Ensuring the desired pavement surface condition isone potentially effective strategy to reduce the occurrence of severe accidents. This paperstudy on determine relationship between crash and pavement surface condition. It focuses on developing a causal relationship between pavement condition indices and severity levelof crashes occurring on a sample road (Rasht- Bandar Anzali road). The pavement distresses gathered by infield inspection for determining the pavement condition index (PCI) by MicroPaver software and the crashes data is gathered by Police statistics. The primaryobjective of this study was to understand the relationship between pavement distress and the frequency of accident occur in order to develop pavement management strategies that may reduce the frequency of pavement-related accidents. The results present that poor pavementconditions were associated with more severe crashes compared to particularly fair pavement conditions. This observation was proved during the analyses of distress score and condition score. Distress and condition scores are indicators of overall pavement condition. Thereforevery poor distress and condition scores were found to be associated with more severe crashes. The effects of pavement conditions on crash severity were more significant which was shown in the analyses of most key pavement scores and ratings. In accordance, the analyses also shown that the pavement condition effects were particularly related to multivehicle crashes in many cases. Significant correlation is evident between pavement condition and crash injury severity.

کلیدواژه ها:

Pavement management system ، Pavement condition index ، Crash severity ، Crash rate ، MicroPaver software