Browsing by Subject "Road shoulders"

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    Benefit:Cost Analysis of In-Vehicle Technologies and Infrastructure Modifications as a Means to Prevent Crashes Along Curves and Shoulders
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, Research Services Section, 2009-12) Pitale, Jaswandi Tushar; Shankwitz, Craig; Preston, Howard; Barry, Michael
    The State of Minnesota has under way its Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) initiative, the goal of which is to eliminate fatal traffic crashes. This is a daunting task, and with limited financial resources, optimal strategies that provide the greatest benefit for a given cost have to be utilized if the goal of TZD is to be met. This report reviews both infrastructure and emerging in-vehicle solutions as a means to determine the optimal deployment strategy of countermeasures designed to improve highway safety. Infrastructure-based solutions are examined on two levels: 1) an analysis of a cross-section of strategies implemented throughout Minnesota, which 2) produced a before:after analysis that quantified the effectiveness of a variety of strategies utilized in Minnesota. In addition to the standard civil engineering countermeasures studied under the before:after analysis, emerging infrastructure and in-vehicle technology-based solutions were modeled in terms of effectiveness and potential deployment schedules. These cost and effectiveness models facilitated a comparison to the results of the before:after analysis, and from the comparison, optimal strategies for improving safety with limited funds and the TZD goal are presented.