Comparing Safety Performance Measures Obtained from Video Capture Data

Abstract

Safety performance is evaluated by using measures obtained experimentally from a videotaping of traffic operations at an urban roundabout situated in Cosenza, Italy. Five different expressions of safety performance from the perspective of “rear-end” vehicle interactions include maximum deceleration rate to avoid a crash (DRAC), time-to-collision (TTC), proportion of stopping distance (PSD), time integrated time-to-collision (TIT), and crash potential index (CPI). Differences in safety performance are discussed with respect to the type of measure, traffic conditions, and variations in roundabout geometry. The results of this analysis suggest that safety performance is highly sensitive to the way it is measured; different measures can highlight different locations or geometric features of the roundabout as posing potential safety problems. This study underscores the usefulness of safety performance measures for providing meaningful experimental indicators of potential safety problems at roundabouts and how these problems can be affected by changing traffic conditions.