Development of Accident Prediction Models at Freeway Curve Section Based on Geometric Characteristics

Traffic accidents associated with road geometric characteristics are generated in any road section even though roads were well constructed with given design criteria. Geometric characteristics are the only factors under controling of human being. Therefore, road planners should make clear the relationships between traffic accidents and road geometric characteristics and furthermore, apply them to plan route location and design. This paper studies the effect of key geometric characteristics on crash rate for Ho-Nam Expressway. Accident data collected by Korea Highway Corporation for a five year period were used. The accident analysis were focused on horizontal curve sections and classified them into single curve sections(SCS) and spiraled reverse curve sections(SRCS) according to decision sight distance. As a result, accident rate of SRCS were more higher than that of SCS. In addition, we developed two models available on each type of horizontal curve sections.