Design and Predeployment Assessment of an Integrated Intersection Dilemma Zone Protection System

AbstractDespite the fact that both traffic researchers and highway agencies have devoted considerable efforts over the past few decades to improving intersection safety, the development of effective strategies remains a challenging task. This research presents an integrated dilemma zone protection system (DZPS) for contending with the safety issues caused by the presence of a dilemma zone, a primary factor contributing to the rear-end collisions or side-angle crashes at intersections, especially at those experiencing high-speed traffic flows. The entire paper includes three parts: (1) development of an integrated system for protecting vehicles within the dilemma zone; (2) procedures to calibrate those key system parameters with field data at a candidate intersection; and (3) design of a per-deployment assessment process for evaluating such a design prior to its field deployment. The proposed DZPS, developed with a target intersection’s traffic characteristic data and geometric constraints, consists of thr...