Vehicle and Pedestrian Accident Models for Median Locations

Abstract

It has long been recognized that medians are an effective method of increasing vehicular safety and capacity on urban and suburban arterials. Medians can provide an additional lane for through traffic by removing left turning vehicles from the traffic stream. Medians are also generally considered to be beneficial to pedestrian safety and operations. A number of studies have been conducted on modeling the expected number of vehicle accidents, and, hence, incremental benefits resulting from the installation of different median types. These studies did not, however, determine the expected pedestrian benefits resulting from the installation of medians. This paper presents the results of a study conducted for the Federal Highway Administration. It presents the activities and results of developing accident predictive equations for both vehicle-vehicle and pedestrian-vehicle accidents due to different median types. The model was developed for urban and suburban unlimited access arterials. The results are not applicable to rural environment or to limited access arterials.