Quantifying the relationship between geometric features and road crashes on curved rural Texas roads

The reduction of road crashes is an increasing concern for achieving an efficient highway system. The Highways are progressing with the latest design feature, but the rural roadway systems need more attention to ensure safe roads. So, one of the road alignment features that has more number of crashes is on curves. So, the Rural curved roads in Texas have been chosen to study the crash statistics. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the crash statistics regarding frequency and analyze the variances and learn the significance of data and how different geometric characters influence the road crashes. Also, to study what factors are one of the leading causes of crashes and if these factors along with Stopping Sight Distance can be established in a relationship with the number of crashes. The crash data is obtained from Crash Report Investigation System of TxDOT and is analyzed using JMP and Excel software.;This report includes the introduction to road crashes, safety, its importance followed by the literature review on various crash causes. The third chapter is a concentration on stopping sight distance on curve alignments and how it contributes to the road crashes. The fourth chapter is the Crash analysis from the years 2010 to 2015 completely refined and limited to rural curved roads in Texas. This chapter includes the significance of the data through one-way ANOVA test and to check how the data is connected through Tukey's HSD test followed by studying correlations of certain parameters with contingency tables. Chapter five includes the conclusion of the research and if a relationship is established.