Newsletter

Vulnerable road users

Cyclists are known as vulnerable road users and their traffic safety is a major problem which needs to be considered by urban planners. There are many studies with explicit focus on cyclist safety as to explore the interaction between cyclists and other road users in urban networks and finally propose some measures to improve their safety. One of the most important parts of cyclists studies is to identify hazardous points and locations.The idea is to develop an app to collect precise bicycle kinematic data such as speed, acceleration, direction, and position. The app will be installed on the smartphones of bicycle commuters in order to collect the abovementioned data. Analysing collected data makes it possible to detect abnormal cyclist traffic situations and hazardous locations. It is also needed to provide an algorithm to classify different abnormal situations based on the causes.

Safety Evaluation of LED Street Lighting on Drivers

Over the last decades due to the increasing interest in the energy-reducing lighting systems on road networks, new generations of street lighting systems have been developed. The most common of the new technologies are Light Emission Diodes (LED). To date the main focus has been given on the energy saving potential of LED street lighting while the traffic safety impacts are not well examined. The impact of road lighting on road safety is well known but, to our knowledge, a few studies investigated the safety effect of road lighting in terms of light level and other quality parameter.

Since LED technology provides different light quality it might have impact on driving behavior, either positive or negative, and accordingly, decrease or increase the risk of accidents. In this context, understanding the impact of this new technology on driving behavior is important. Furthermore, due to an increased replacement of conventional road lighting by LED in Denmark, there is a growing need for traffic safety evaluation of this technology.

Since the new lighting technologies have been recently tested and applied, the safety impact of them on road users could not be evaluated through analyzing traffic accident data. To cope with this problem, surrogate approaches can be applied in evaluating traffic safety measures on the basis of observing non- or near-accident events. In this study, jerky driving method will be used as an indicator to identify safety critical driving behavior or “accident prone” drivers.

It is needed to collect precise vehicle kinematic data such as speed, acceleration, direction and position. The data collection will be provided by creating an app for smartphones. There is a need to collect the required data in two situations; in a corridor with conventional street lighting and a corridor with LED street lighting. Analyzing data collected and comparing them in two situations will provide a basis to evaluate the safety impact of LED street lighting on driving behavior.