Comparative analysis of performance measures for network screening: a case study of brazilian urban areas

Abstract

The overall effectiveness of the roadway safetymanagement process relies on a robust method for identifying and ranking sites with major potential for safety improvements. In Brazil, guidelines for hotspot identification are usually based only on crash frequency and Crash Rate as safety performance measures. This study presents a comparative analysis of safety performance measures, considering its limitations of applicability in a sample of signalized intersections from Fortaleza city, Brazil. The performance of each measure to rank the sample intersection was obtained through the rank difference between each safety performance measure and the Excess ExpectedAverage Crash Frequency with EBAdjustment (EEB). In addition, it has taken a temporal analysis based on the consistency of safety performancemeasures during subsequent time periods.The results have suggested a reasonable matching between the most comprehensive safety performance measure (EEB) and very simple safety performance measures such as crash frequency and Crash Rate. It is recommended to investigate the consistency of the results for longer observation period as well as for a different jurisdiction in Brazil.