Development of Decision-Support System for Managing Highway Safety

Abstract

Road maintenance in Greece has not sufficiently addressed safety problems in the past. In an effort to assist maintenance agencies in justifying safety improvement and resource allocation decisions, a computerized system has been developed that provides suggestions for maintenance priority setting according to accident characteristics and proposals of likely countermeasures to specific safety hazards. The priority list is established based on accident and fatality rates as well as on high occurrence frequencies of a single accident type. Proposed countermeasures result from a knowledge base that has been developed based on past experience and expert judgments. The system effectiveness in providing appropriate solutions can be evaluated in time through before-and-after analyses and results are fed back to improve the knowledge base. The system includes a database where information about accident characteristics, road environment characteristics, and maintenance history is stored. Data input and result presentation forms have been developed to accommodate user interface. Analysis tools are employed for black section assessment (of roads in poor condition) and before-and-after analysis.