Research Papers (2009 – 2013)

Abstract

The main role of traffic enforcement is seen as deterring road users from committing traffic violations. Several researchers (Elvik, 2001) suggest that the number of roadway collisions, including collision fatalities, could be significantly reduced by eliminating traffic violations. However, to be successful, the traffic enforcement should be problem oriented, well planned, monitored and evaluated. The question is “With limited resources, how, when and where should the enforcement units be deployed to minimize the risk of roadway accidents?” This paper presents a scheduling and deployment model for traffic safety enforcement that accounts for the expected risk of roadway collisions with different severity levels (property damage only, injury, and fatal). To identify the collision black spots, a new probability model that considers the historical patterns of roadway collisions as well as all events that have no historical record but may happen in the future is proposed. The probability that an event will occur in the future is viewed as a combination of both objective and subjective degree of belief. The model is implemented in MS Excel using Edmonton roadway collision data to create an hourly and daily schedule of deployment locations for the traffic safety enforcement unit.

Michael Allouche