The Application of Traffic Conflict Technique as a Road Safety Evaluation Method: A Case Study of Hasselt Intersection

Abstract

The majority of traffic safety evaluations in the world generally have been conducted by colecting historical accident data. The data will then being analyzed using risk prediction models or before-after study that required an exact and reliable data. Meanwhile, the availability of accident data is rare where the rest actually consist of near-crashes and abnormal behaviour, which is mostly underreporting and lack of detail concerning the behavioural and situational of the event. Therefore, traffic conflict technique, is needed to assess traffic safety as another approach rather than waiting for several years until a number of accidents happen in a certain area. Hence the aim of this study is to make a safety evaluation towards a specific intersection in Hasselt Belgium using traffic conflict technique. The observation of conflict (near crashes) was carried out in intersection of Manteliusstraat – Dorpsstraat – Thonissenlaan in the Hasselt, Belgium. In order to differentiate slight conflict and serious conflict, the TA-value (Time of accident) was defined based on the estimated speed of the road user and estimated distance from the road user when conflict occurred. From the observation, it was found that the conflicts between car and pedestrian were the most frequent conflict, with 50% of the total conflict, and that the conflict between car with car and the conflict between car with cyclist were high in terms of severity level based on the TA-value. By taking these into consideration, it can be concluded that unsafe crossing for pedestrian and cyclist, different speed, and peak hour traffic were the causes of conflict. Therefore, it was concluded that traffic conflict technique can be used to assess and measure traffic safety in a certain road segment. Furthermore, in term of safety, the Manteliusstraat – Dorpsstraat – Thonissenlaan intersection should be modified with some alternatives; signalized intersection with toucan crossing and traffic control devices improvement

A brief review: traffic conflict techniques and the challenges of the studies in Indonesia

“…Based on online searching, scientific publications related to TCT conducted in Indonesia are only found in limited numbers [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In the search actually found also some Indonesian researchers who conducted research related to traffic conflict on abroad, for example, conducted by Malkhamah et al [24] or Suwarto and Basuki [25]. Because this article focuses on traffic conflict studies conducted in Indonesia, those studies are not in the discussion of this article.…”

“…When viewed from the affiliation of researchers in the study of traffic conflicts in Indonesia above, it can be seen that at first the study of traffic conflicts in Indonesia was carried out by researchers affiliated with Research and Development Center for Road and Bridges (Pusjatan) [14,[21][22]. Furthermore, there are also researchers from the University of Indonesia [17][18], Gadjah Mada University [19][20]23], Diponegoro University [24], Islam Indonesia University [16], and the Polytechnic of Road Transportation Safety (PKTJ) [15,[19][20]. It can be seen that these institutions are prominent research institutions and higher education in the field of transportation, especially those that have attention to the field of road safety in Indonesia.…”

Modelling large vehicles operating speed characteristics on freeway alignment based on aggregated GPS data

“…In response, researchers have developed scientific frameworks that accurately evaluate road traffic safety and formulate strategic safety measures to support management and reduce crash rates. Among these frameworks, there are methods based on operating speed, which include the theoretical operating speed model [1], spatial sight of the speed model [2], vehicle dynamics simulation of the operating speed model [3] and more. However, most of the above‐mentioned methods are based on the theoretical model.…”