Investigation of Highway Safety Evaluation System

As the traffic accident rate keeps growing in China, more and more attentions have been paid to highway safety especially during highway design phase. This paper focuses on developing a new Highway Safety Evaluation System (HSES). First, the Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM) software and its structure were introduced and the challenges of applying this tool to the highway design process in China were investigated. And then, the structure and data organization of HSES were introduced, furthermore, the key data transfer tool was completed, that can transfer existing highway geometric design data in China to Land XML 1.0 data for the use of after-then safety evaluation. Thirdly, the modules of HSES were shown and explained. And details of the proposed models development and implementation for operation speed and crash prediction were described. Finally, the advantages, limitations and future expectations of the software system were discussed.