Impact of Roadway Lighting on Nighttime Crash Performance and Driver Behavior

Project Description The goal of this SHRP 2 Project is to explore the feasibility of using SHRP 2 NDS, RID, and CIBSS lighting data, for meaningful evaluation of the impact of lighting on night-time crashes and near-miss events. Findings of the analysis will have the potential of leading to lighting-related countermeasures that specifically address lighting characteristics (for example, the level of lighting (vertical and horizontal illuminance), roadway luminance, spot lighting, and lighting uniformity), lighting and policy/standard changes aimed at improving safety performance, reducing energy consumption and optimizing asset investments.. It is expected that the research will look at: The effects of roadway lighting characteristics on driver behaviors that affect safety, such as workload; The effects of roadway lighting levels on safety for different roadway geometries and traffic-control settings; and The recommended lighting levels needed to support safety performance in different roadway geometries and traffic-control settings. Data Request Scope The research team will request NDS data for the following roadways (may require additional roadways to ensure the identification of interesting lighting conditions) in the Seattle-TacomaBellevue metropolitan area: IH-5 and IH-405. The facilities pass through several interchanges and has a great deal of diversity in lighting levels (including segments with and without lighting). The facilities include a wide range of different lane configurations and represents a variety of traffic control settings. The sections will not be longer than 30 miles for each corridor, SR-522 from US-2 at Monroe and IH-5 at Seattle. This is a 24-mile surface arterial passes through several grade-separated or at-grade intersections. The roadway connects Monroe and Seattle and includes two-lane, four-lane, and six-lane cross sections with both controlled-access and non-controlled-access segments. The roadway also includes segments with and without street lighting. Up to 20 intersections in the Seattle area will be selected. Data Specification Time Series data points for a total of up to 1000 trips for each of the three corridors mentioned above including the following variables (may request additional variables as needed): Speed, GPS; Speed, Vehicle Network; Acceleration, x-axis; Acceleration, yaxis; Yaw Rate, z-axis; Turn Signal; Acceleration, z-axis; Cruise Control; Day; Dilution of Precision, Position; Head Confidence; Head Position X; Head Position X Baseline; Head Position Y; Head Position Y Baseline; Head Position Z; Head Position Z Baseline; Head Rotation X; Head Rotation X Baseline; Head Rotation Y; Head Rotation Y Baseline; Head Rotation Z; Head Rotation Z Baseline; Illuminance, Ambient; Lane Marking, Distance, Left; Lane Marking, Distance, Right; Lane Marking, Probability, Right; Lane Marking, Type, Left; Lane Marking, Type, Right; Lane Markings, Probability, Left; Lane Position Offset; Lane Width; Latitude; Location; Longitude; Month; Pitch Rate, y-axis; Pitch Rate, y-axis fast; Radar, Range Rate Forward X for Tracks 0 to 7; Radar, Range Rate Forward Y for Tracks 0 to 7; Radar, Range, Forward X for Tracks 0 to 7 ; Radar, Range, Forward Y for Tracks 0 to 7; Radar, Target Identification for Tracks 0 to 7; Roll Rate, x-axis; Roll Rate, x-axis fast; Subject_ID; Time; Timestamp; vehicle_id; Yaw Rate, z-axis fast; and Year. Intersections. The research team will provide VTTI SHRP2 data team with a list of up to 50 intersections represented in the Washington state lighting database. For these intersections, VTTI will provide a summary table of characteristics with the following variables: Number of trips through intersection Number of drivers who drove through the intersection Age bins and gender distributions for those drivers Time of day distributions Number of crash and near crashes if any Event Detail data. The research team will request the event data table for night crashes and near crashes for the State of Washington. Depending on the data and time availability the research team will select 50 to 100 events that will be reviewed in greater detail in the secure data enclave. For this limited number of events baseline events will also be required at this point. Potential variables to review on include Video Dashboard and Steering Wheel View; Video Frame; Video, Driver and Left Side View; Video, Forward Roadway; Video, Occupancy Snapshot; Video, Rear View. Driver Demographic Questionnaire and Driver Behavior Questionnaire data for the drivers that are involved in the extracted Time Series and Event Detail data. Video data for selected trip epochs. The research team will look at video data for up to 250 special epochs of the selected final trips. Potential variables that the research team will look at are the same described above for the events.