Effort Allocation in Rural Road Safety Analysis under Data-Limited Conditions

Abstract

Traffic safety policy defines plans that are expressed using numerical values for the planned level of improvement. The directing or apportioning of efforts represents the initial step of planned improvements. If a road is observed as a system of sections, the sections should be prioritized, selected, and investigated according to precise enhancement requests. A temporal approach to road safety analysis enables the application of reliability reallocation theory. The individual application of certain reliability reallocation methods may yield results that are unusable for a road authority in some situations. This paper describes a method that is based on a judicious combination of acceptable features of two reliability reallocation methods [the aeronautical radio incorporated (ARINC) and the minimum effort algorithm] in different iterations. This method enables the possibility of setting a precisely expressed goal with a minimal set of input values to obtain quality and applicable results for a decision maker. The presented approach represents an improvement in the field of road safety decision-making support and is transferable to other areas of transportation engineering and effort allocation.