The Safest Path: Analyzing the Effects of Crash Costs on Route Choice and Accessibility

Abstract

The "safest path" is proposed to optimize the on-road safety of individuals and minimize the cost of crashes. In this study, the framework of a link-based crash cost analysis is built and applied to assess the crash cost of each link segment on the road network of the Minneapolis - St. Paul area based on Safety Performance Functions from the perspective of travelers. The safest path is then found for all OD pairs to compare flow patterns and accessibility distributions with those based on the traditional shortest travel time path. While, the safest path does not coincide with the shortest path, the accessibility distributions have similar patterns.