Safe Route Mapping of Roadways Using Multiple Sourced Data

The use of systematic techniques with historical crash data and qualitative measures has long been a common practice to identify the problematic road features and develop countermeasures to mitigate the crash risk in crash-prone locations. This paper proposes a novel approach, Safe Route Mapping (SRM) model that integrates crash-based estimates with conflict risks computed from driver-based data to score the safety of roadways. An advanced Safety Performance Function (SPF) estimates the number of crashes, and a driver-based model computes dynamic conflict risk measures from driver and traffic data. In real-life implementations of the proposed methodology, the driver-based data and traffic data can be collected from vehicles or infrastructure-based data sources, including smartphones. We demonstrate the methodology using real historical crash data and simulated driver-based data obtained from VISSIM and SSAM. We show safety risk heat maps for the example roadway and illustrate how these maps change with driver types and traffic volumes. The proposed methodology fills the existing gaps in the use of near real-time dynamic data to designate safe corridors, dispatch law enforcement, and plan safety projects. Drivers can also use the road heat maps for situational awareness and trip planning.