Effects of Inclement Weather Events on Road Surface Conditions and Traffic Safety: An Event-Based Empirical Analysis Framework

Abstract

Pavement friction has been widely recognized as an important winter road maintenance performance indicator for objectively assessing the level of service required to maintain safe driving conditions during inclement weather events. Despite significant efforts being put forth by road agencies, prevailing road surface conditions during snowstorms can yield negative consequences that compromise the safety of the traveling public. Acknowledging the vast road network that needs to be monitored and the uncertainty associated with the randomness of hazardous road weather conditions, this paper presents a novel event-based framework aimed at investigating the magnitude of the effect of varying pavement friction levels in urban environments on traffic safety during snowstorms. Negative binomial safety performance functions developed using hourly weather datasets and road surface conditions information found a strong statistically significant relationship between pavement friction and traffic safety. This meant that, with the accumulation of snow and ice during snowstorms, road surface conditions were found to deteriorate thereby increasing the likelihood of collision occurrence. The event-based models developed also suggested that the risks of driving during snowstorms varied dramatically depending on the varying surface states, represented by friction coefficient ranges. Collisions were expected to significantly decrease whenever the pavement friction was above 0.6; under conditions where pavement friction was below 0.35, collisions were predicted to significantly increase. Additionally, arterial roads were shown to experience a significantly higher number of collisions than collectors, further justifying why arterials should be prioritized in snow clearing policies that most cities adopt.