Paper Details

TRB 90th Annual Meeting (January 23-27, 2011)

Event Number:	326
Event Title:	Advancements in Quantification of Highway Safety Performance
Event Date:	Jan 24 2011 2:30PM- 5:00PM
Event Location:	Marriott, Salon 2
Event Description:
Event Agenda:

INJURY OUTCOMES AND COSTS FOR CROSS-MEDIAN AND MEDIAN BARRIER CRASHES (11-1024)

The objective of this research was to quantify the injury outcomes and develop reliable and comprehensive injury costs for cross-median crashes (CMC) and median barrier crashes (MBC). A three-step methodology was developed to quantify the crash costs for each crash severity and type. All CMC and MBC between 2001 and 2007 in Wisconsin were identified and used in this analysis. The Wisconsin CODES database provided comprehensive injury costs based on the injury types and severities suffered by participants in study crashes. As expected, Multi-vehicle CMC result in both more total injuries and more severe injuries than single-vehicle CMC. Injury costs for the same injury level on KABCO scale are different for different crash types. Injury costs for concrete MBC are 33to 50% less than those of multi-vehicle CMC while the injury costs of concrete MBC for lower severities (B and C) are similar to those of single-vehicle CMC for the same severities; but for incapacitating injuries the costs are 30% less. As expected, concrete MBC result in lower severities than CMC. The costs by crash severity, vary significantly between different crash types. Concrete median barrier injury crashes are roughly 20% of multi-vehicle CMC costs and 50% of single-vehicle CMC costs. Results indicate that using one set of crash costs for all crash types biases any evaluation. Therefore, it is recommended that crash-type-specific costs be used in applications such as development of median barrier warrant where specific types of crashes are considered (CMC and MBC).

Authors
     Ooms, Andrew , University of Wisconsin, Madison
     Chitturi, Madhav V., University of Wisconsin, Madison
     Noyce, David A., University of Wisconsin, Madison