Risk Assessment by Vehicle Speed Difference in Climbing Lanes

The speed difference in mountainous area is known causing traffic conflicts and accidents. Thus, climbing lanes have popularly been installed in mountainous roads around the world. In the present paper, vehicle speeds within and around climbing lanes of Ho-nam and Jung-ang expressway were collected and evaluated. The evaluation was performed in terms of coefficient of variations which represent dispersion of vehicle speed in climbing lanes. Results show that speed dispersion is more significant at segments before and after climbing lanes than those within climbing lanes. The estimated accident risk was evaluated using The Solomon's u-shaped curve. It was identified that the accident risk is also a lot significant at the same segments as much as 2.2 times greater than those of climbing lanes.