Proactive Safety Improvement via crowdsourcing Live Curve Safety Assessment

该项目将为评估、管理和改善公路网上水平曲线的安全条件创造新的方法。在美国，尽管弯道只占公路总里程的5%，但在水平弯道上发生的严重车祸数量高得不成比例(占所有致命撞车事故的25%)。曲线的建议速度可能会因路面老化和损坏导致的路面状况变化而改变，而曲线几何形状的改变可能会因重铺路面和维护而导致。如果没有及时评估、监控和调整曲线咨询速度，这可能会导致更高的撞车风险。然而，当前的网络级曲线安全评估实践对工程师来说是费力、耗时且昂贵的，导致问题曲线通常只有在崩溃发生后才能识别。为了解决这一问题，该项目旨在开发新的方法，利用低成本的移动设备、机构内的众包、先进和可扩展的算法，以及一种新的信心驱动的决策方法，使具有成本效益的频繁曲线安全评估在技术上和经济上都是可行的。该项目将开发的方法将大大节省运输机构的成本和劳动力，并将促进运输安全公平，特别是对于资源有限的机构。研究成果将为推动未来技术和工具的发展奠定坚实的基础，最重要的是，它们将朝着开发安全系统迈出一大步，通过将被动安全管理实践转变为主动的道路安全管理实践来拯救生命。本项目的目标是通过采取多学科的方法来开发和验证两种网络级曲线安全评估方法。第一种方法是众包多行程弯道安全评估方法，该方法将解决从单个弯道安全评估扩展到众包框架下的网络评估时，与不同车辆类型、悬挂性能和驾驶员行为相关的最新技术中的技术挑战。该方法将采用一种新颖的种子传播模型和迭代收敛反馈模型，结合曲线驱动运动学关系和时空分析，同时估计车辆悬架和曲线几何特性。第二种方法是依赖于轨迹和道路几何形状的置信度方法，它将根据车辆的轨迹和道路几何形状，定量评估计算的决策结果的置信度，例如咨询速度，从而实现知情的、数据驱动的决策。该项目的成果还将被整合到广泛的课堂和研究活动中，以培训下一代科学家、工程师和政策制定者关于创新技术的培训，这些创新技术将促进主动的安全管理实践和交通安全公平。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will create novel methodologies for assessing, managing, and improving the safety conditions of horizontal curves on roadway networks. In the US, a disproportionately high number of serious vehicle crashes occur on horizontal curves (25 percent of all fatal crashes), despite curves accounting for only 5 percent of total highway mileage. The advisory speed of curves can change due to pavement condition changes caused by pavement aging and distress, and curve geometry change can be caused by resurfacing and maintenance. This can lead to a higher risk of crashes if the curve advisory speed has not been assessed, monitored, and adjusted in a timely manner. However, the current network-level curve safety assessment practices are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and costly for engineers, resulting in problematic curves often being identified only after crashes occur. To address this issue, this project aims to develop new methodologies that leverage low-cost mobile devices, intra-agency crowdsourcing, advanced and scalable algorithms, and a novel confidence-driven, decision-making method that will make cost-effective and frequent curve safety assessments technically and economically feasible. The methodologies that will be developed in this project will result in significant savings in terms of cost and labor for transportation agencies and will promote transportation safety equity, especially for agencies with limited resources. The research outcomes will lay a solid foundation for advancing the development of future technologies and tools, and, most importantly, they will take a big step towards development of a safe system that saves lives by transforming the reactive safety management practices into proactive roadway safety management practices. The objectives of this project are to develop and validate two methodologies for network-level curve safety assessment by taking a multidisciplinary approach. The first methodology is a crowdsourced multi-run curve safety assessment methodology that will address the technical challenges in the state-of-art technologies related to different vehicle types, suspension properties and driver behaviors when scaling up from individual curve safety assessment to network-wide assessment with a crowdsourcing framework. This methodology will use a novel seed-propagation model and an iterative convergence feedback model combined with the curve-driving kinematics relationship and spatial-temporal analysis for simultaneous estimation of vehicle suspension and curve geometric properties. The second methodology is a trajectory and roadway geometry-dependent confidence level methodology that will enable informed, data-driven decision-making by quantitatively evaluating the confidence level of the computed decision-making outcomes, such as advisory speed, based on a vehicle’s trajectory and roadway geometry. The outcomes of this project will also be integrated into a wide range of classroom and research activities to train the next generation of scientists, engineers, and policymakers on innovative technologies that will promote proactive safety management practices and transportation safety equity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.