Highway crashes result in high fatalities and various degrees of live changing injuries that cause huge economic loses to the country. The World Bank estimates that road crashes cost approximately 1 to 3 percent of a country's annual Gross National Product (GNP) = 350 billion to 1 trillion.
Records for 2011 showed that 4,372 people were killed and a further 17, 464 suffered various injuries as a result of traffic accidents.
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To investigate the effect of pavement condition on traffic safety with emphasis on three federal roads in Bauchi State.
Driver behaviour is judged the most important among causes of road crashes where vehicle and pavement condition are in very good state (Jacobs and Baguely, 2004). Craus et al. (1991) investigated the effect of pavement surface condition on traffic accidents and concluded that there is no significant unilateral correlation between these two parameters.
Al-Masaeid (1997) found that the pavement condition had significant effect on single- and multiple vehicle accident rates, but no statistical influence on the total accident rate.
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Sjlinder et al (1997) and Ihs (2004) indicated that ruts possibly seem to have a tendency to improve traffic safety while unevenness (as defined by the International Roughness Index, IRI) has the opposite effect. Studies of the relationships between geometric design and road accidents in Kenya and others, showed that apart from traffic flow, junctions per kilometre was the most important factor related to accidents, followed by horizontal and vertical curvature.
The study proposed using accident reduction and prevention measures as a way of meeting the challenges of traffic safety in developing countries.
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Examples of effects of engineering design on road safety. Source: Jacobs and baguely, 2004
Data Pavement condition data from the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA).
Method FERMAs pavement rating system in Table 1 was made qualitative by assigning scores as in Table 2. Routes Bauchi to Jos Border (114 km) Bauchi to Yobe Border (137 km) Bauchi to Gombe (155 km)
Bad
Stable pavement structure with asphalt overlay. No or very few potholes, or alligator cracks. Stable pavement structure with asphalt overlay. Has potholes not exceeding 100m2 per km length. Presence of undulating road sections, alligator cracks and cluster potholes with few failed sections. Predominantly unstable road sections, wide alligator cracks with many failed section up to subgrade, pavement washout, peaty surface. Not safe for vehicular traffic
4.2
43
213
31
4.95
0.72
10
4.5 4
Route
120
100
Number of Crashes
R = 0.004
4.5
Relationship between Number of Crashes and Road Condition Score (RCS) for the three roads
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1.8
1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
R = 0.5885
Relationship between Normalised Number of Crashes with respect to Average Daily Traffic (ADT) and Road Condition Score (RCS) for the three roads
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350 300
Number Injured
250
R = 0.466
200 150
100
50 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
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5 4 3 2 1 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 R = 0.8802
Relationship between Normalised Number of people Injured with respect to ADT and RCS
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70 60
Number Killed
50 40 R = 0.0684
30
20 10 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
1.4
1.2 1 R = 0.9554 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
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The result of the study shows that there is a statistically significant effect of pavement condition on traffic safety when the traffic volume is considered in terms of number of persons injured and number of fatalities.
Design considerations like horizontal and vertical curvatures, number towns/villages/intersections on major routes have significant impact on traffic safety. Most of the accidents are near vertical and horizontal curves, security check points, towns and villages, as well as intersections. The severity index from the number of crashes shows that the highest fatality rate is 0.76 (Bauchi - Gombe route) while the lowest rate of 0.60 (Bauchi - Jos route) people killed per crash is rather alarming. The severity index from the number of crashes shows that the highest injury rate is 4.95 (Bauchi - Yobe Border route) while the lowest rate is 2.78 (Bauchi - Jos route) people injured per crash.
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Thank You
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