Investigating and modeling the influence of PET-types on crossing conflicts at urban unsignalized intersections in India.

Abstract

Un-signalized intersections in India witnessed the maximum number of crashes and fatalities in 2019. The nature of the crash investigation is still largely reactive, where the need for accurate and reliable crash data for effective safety diagnosis is pivotal. In India, crash records are unscientific, and critical details are missing. Therefore, a proactive approach using surrogate safety measures is more promising and prudent in analyzing traffic safety. The present study investigates and models crossing conflicts at un-signalized intersections under mixed traffic conditions. Traffic video data for 14 un-signalized intersections (eight un-signalized three-legged intersections and six un-signalized four-legged intersections) were collected under normal weather conditions. The crossing conflicts were identified and characterized as critical and noncritical conflicts based on the values of post-encroachment time (PET). Conflicts with PET values between -1 s and 1 s were identified as critical conflicts. The observation revealed the existence of both positive and negative PET values. The investigation revealed that crossing conflicts with negative PET values are riskier and more unsafe than conflicts with positive ones. Therefore, the crossing conflicts with positive and negative PETs were modeled separately. The positive and negative PET-based critical crossing conflicts are modeled as a function of traffic flow and intersection geometry-related characteristics using truncated negative binomial regression under a full Bayesian modeling framework. K-fold cross-validation with fivefold was employed to calibrate the model, and RMSE was used to find the best model. The modeling results revealed that the volume and traffic composition of the offending and conflicting stream and intersection geometry significantly influence the number of positive and negative PET-based critical crossing conflicts. The developed models can interest engineers and safety experts to analyze traffic safety and identify critical intersections in urban road networks.