Application of Collision Prediction Models for Quantifying the Safety Benefit of Winter Road Maintenance

TLDR: A set of collision risk models that have the potential to address this knowledge gap are introduced using a unique data set containing detailed hourly records of road weather and surface conditions, traffic counts, and collisions over 31 maintenance routes from Ontario, Canada, from 2000 to 2006.

Abstract: Winter road maintenance activities are intuitively beneficial due to their critical roles in maintaining the safety and mobility of highway networks in winter seasons. There is, however, no robust methodology currently available for quantifying these benefits. This paper introduces a set of collision risk models that have the potential to address this knowledge gap. The models were developed using a unique data set containing detailed hourly records of road weather and surface conditions, traffic counts, and collisions over 31 maintenance routes from Ontario, Canada, from 2000 to 2006. The developed models were used in several case studies to show their application for evaluating alternative winter maintenance policies and operations, such as shortening bare pavement recovery time, changing maintenance operation deployment time, and raising level of service standards.