Research On The Safety Evaluation And Countermeasures For Freeway Operation

In recent years, the rapid development of expressway construction has greatly contributed to the fast progression of national economy. However, with the sharp increase in the quantity of motor vehicle and the uprising of traffic flow, more and more traffic safety problems increasingly take place in expressway operation. How to reduce accident rate, reduce casualties and property losses to the minimum, and improve the safety level in expressway operation has become one of the urgent problems in the development process of highway transportation.Since November 2005 when Fenyang-Lishi expressway in Shanxi Province was opened to traffic, traffic accidents have taken place frequently and consequences are serious. This problem is more conspicuous in the Fenyang-Xuegongling section. Depending on Fenyang-Xuegongling section in Fenli expressway in Shanxi Province, this paper investigates the safety evaluation of expressway operation, which can provide significant guidance for summarizing the characteristics and causes of traffic accidents in accident-prone sections of expressway, and putting forward targeted safety countermeasures.To begin with, applying the method of math-statistics, this paper makes characteristic analysis on the rules on the happening of accidents in this section from January 2007 to August 2009 from the aspects of time, space, vehicle type, accident type, drivers’ attributions and safety evaluation indexes.Secondly, in order to improve operation condition of traffic safety, reduce accident rate, reduce casualties and put forward targeted safety countermeasures, this paper combines quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, analyzing accident impact factors in Fenyang-Xuegongling section from the aspects of human, vehicle, highway, environment and management.Thirdly, in accordance with the present Highway Engineering Technique Standard, Design Specification for Highway Route and Guidelines for Safety Audit of Highway, this paper makes safety evaluation on this section from the aspects of design specification compliance, running speed prediction, velocity coordination of adjacent sections, and design and running velocity coordination of the same section.Lastly, analyzing the characteristics and influencing factors of traffic accidents in Fenyang-Xuegongling section and combining evaluation results of safety operation, this paper provides countermeasures and proposals for safety operation management, such as managing velocity, overload and oversize, sections’ traffic; strengthening traffic accidents coping and disposal capacity; reinforcing safe driving education; investing more for scientific research on traffic safety; and introducing new traffic safety techniques.