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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Road Safety Ratings for Selected Accident-Prone Sections

in Urban Areas
Ujjwal Bansal1, Sumit Kumar2, Vilas Patil3, Vikas K4, L Durga Prashanth5
and Vikas M6
1,2,3,4
Student, Department of Civil Engineering, RV College of Engineering, India
5,6
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, RV College of Engineering, India
E-mail: vikasm@[Link]

[Link] study carries out a detailed analysis of Road Safety conditions at different junctions
in Bengaluru. This study takes into account various factors both from Highway Engineering and
Traffic Engineering. These factors govern the safety features of the roads. The factors include both
the road attributes and the traffic data from various locations of which a detailed analysis is carried
out.
The project proceeds with a detailed data collection and analysis of the collected data using an
analytical model designed by International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP). This model uses
the data collection and analysis technique to generate a Star Rating System (SRS) which is effective
in keeping a track of the Road safety features. The system is suitable for all types of road users in
terms of their safety and is destined to reduce road accidents. This study is very much important to
know the basic flaws in the structure as well as in traffic management in order to improve the traffic
facilities in India.

1. Introduction
India is the seventh largest country in terms of area. It has a huge Road network of over
5,897,671 kms. This huge road network requires a great maintenance. All the areas in India are
being connected to the main districts through road networks and the government of India is
spending a lot of money in the maintenance of this network as transportation plays an important
role in maintaining continuity in the country. The road infrastructure in India costs over 8
Billion USD every year which is a great amount. Even after spending this much amount, the
current road safety situation is not up to the mark mainly on the National Highways where the
road users do not follow the guidelines issued by the Highway authorities. This is due to the
negligence of the road users in India.
As per a semi structured administered questionnaire, around 75% of the road users didn’t
know the correct side of pedestrian walking and only around 15% could recognize all the traffic
signs. It also showed that 95.5% of the total road users agreed on the safety aspects of using
helmets but only 37% use helmets in day to day road commute.
There are many ways in which the accidents can be reduced. One way is to rate the existing
roads on the basis of their features and characteristics. This way, the road network can be
improved further in a very detailed way as per the requirements of the area and the road users

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

and accidents can be reduced further. In this paper, we have provided the road safety ratings at
selected accident-prone areas in Bangalore, Karnataka on the guidelines issued by iRAP. This
rating helps us in understanding the improvements which can be adopted in the given area of
interest in order to reduce the no. of road accidents and improve the road safety conditions in
India.

1.1. Motivation
A country’s development is based on a lot of factors in which Road safety plays an important
role. As mentioned earlier, a country loses its man power as well as economy in the Road
accidents.
The motivation towards choosing this as the research topic is to try finding solutions to the
pre-existing major problems and take India a step forward towards development. This study
involves the optimized use of both Highway Engineering and Traffic Engineering into our daily
life in order to further motivate the Civil Engineers to carry more research in this field. The
International Road Assessment Programme is an organisation with a group of Researchers who
are motivated towards carrying research in this field and reduce road safety issues. The Road
Safety Rating model is being used in many counties including India and our sole aim is to
increase Road safety by using this model in and around Bangalore.

[Link] review
Improvement in road safety is generally credited to introducing countermeasures related to the
actions of utilities, automobiles and road users, and descriptions of such are outlined in manuals
of best practice. Further rigorous analysis undertaken in particular countries have shown
arithmetic correlations among accident reductions and road safety infrastructure initiatives,
mandatory seatbelt use, drunken driving strategies, speed regulation etc. Some of the early
technologies used in the past which were very useful in establishing a link between the road
accidents and various different factors responsible for the same are discussed below:
According to Fukuda et al (2005), a new approach for improving public participation in
developing a database of plant diseases across the country could be the Hiyari-Hatto method.
Dynamic segmentation, geocoding of addresses and identification of intersections are the
parameters on which the traffic accident situation is based. Furth (2005) used techniques,
comprising simple sampling, estimated relationship beside a spread of possible auxiliary
variables, representative sampling, cluster sampling, and combinations of those approaches. The
later technique used on-off data from a travel sample to estimate the connection between
passenger miles and potential passenger miles, a recently proposed auxiliary variable.
Chin and Quddus (2003) confirmed like others that in predicting crashes traffic volume is
one of the most crucial factors to be considered. Even though these studies concluded traffic
volume as the most crucial indicator variable, there are researchers who considered the effect of
land use on road segment crashes, Valverde and Jovanis (2006) examined the consequences of
demographic patterns and climate on shocks at the country level. Shankar et el (1996) applied a
logical formulation to determine and verify the probability of accident severity conditioned on
the occurrence of an accident. Their findings have the conclusion that there is a significantly
higher chance of obvious injury or grievous hurt or fatality, relative to no obvious injury if the
restraint system is not practiced by at least one driver at the time of occurrence of the accident.
Chand and Alex (2007) calculated the accident risk index and accident severity index for
various Indian states. They are centred upon a series of accident indicators that are combined to
form an index. The values of various India Stated indices are then compared with the values of
these two indices. The number of accidents in a place and vehicles movements in that place are
related to each other, rather than the population or the number of vehicles.
The accident rate fluctuates greatly from state to state. Different accident figures give
different images. In this way, it aims to calculate the Accident Risk Index (ARI) for the states of

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

India. It has been calculated using a series of accident ratios combined by assigning certain
weights to it. ARI is one such indicator that shows the impact of vehicle, road length, area and
population on the accident number and identifies the prevailing accident rate in the district or
state. A seriousness index has been found of the accident number with accidents that gives more
weight to the number of fatalities than to the number of incapacitated.
Edwards (1998) [23], examined the association between weather recorded at a place and
automobile accidents in England and Wales. Accident intensity for different hostile weather
classifications of precipitation i.e. rain, fog and intense wind were weighed against non-
hazardous weather situations. The outcomes revealed that the severity of the accident during rain
decreases significantly compared to good weather conditions.
Home and Reyner (2000), conducted a study which indicates that driver exhaustion
accounts for at least 20% of the total road accidents on straight roads. It urges that a lot of
accidents happen on the roads which are due to excess sleep of the driver at the wheel during
travel. A previous study by Home and Reyner (1995) on traffic accidents between 1987 and
1990 concluded that accidents related to driver’s tiredness and sleep involved 16% of the overall
traffic accidents and 23% of the accidents alone in UK.
To be precise, the main issues related to the behaviour of illegal drivers are speed,
violations of priority rules, drunk driving, traffic lights, traffic lights across the road, distraction
and fatigue, and illegal overtaking. It can be established from these studies that human factors
are decisive in road accidents, but distraction and fatigue also appear to influence driving skills
and driving behaviour (Delhomme et al 2009)

1.3. Need for star rating

There were some of the researches which focussed on reducing accidents and finding out the
major reasons behind those accidents and to mitigate them. But not lot research has been done
on linking the economy of a country to the road safety.
The iRAP Star Score is an unprejudiced indicator of occurrence and seriousness of an
accident occurring on road. The prime focus of this study is on recognizing and documenting the
characteristics of roads which, based on empirical evidence-based studies, affect the most
common and serious accident types.
In this way, on a specific road section or network, the degree of road user risk can be
evaluated without any detailed analysis of accident type data, that is common in low income and
high accident rate countries having weak network of data availability. Evidence indicates that 1-
star roads are least safe in terms of road accident and fatal injuries with 5-star (green) highways
being the safest for daily travel and road usage.

2. Safety rating methodology

In order to ensure road safety, there is a need for accurate measurement of risk level that is
actually considered detrimental to the safety of road section. Risk perhaps captures the
combined risk arising from the interaction of road users, vehicles and road environment. This
chapter aims to provide details of the procedures adopted in road safety rating system.
Identifying the conditions of the road features leading to safety issues, design, plan and
evaluation of the road section under consideration are explained in this section.
The process of how safe the road stretch/section is can be determined and expressed in
various ways. Road safety rating through star rating for existing roads is one of many available
methods which is a well-developed process through exhaustive data collection and its analysis.
Since the process involves more time, most of the agencies do not follow this method and is
limited to several countries. However, the outcome of this method is found beneficial in the
countries wherever it is adopted. The sequential star rating process of any road section under
consideration for road safety auditing is represented in Fig.1and is also listed below.
1. Data collection 2. Road coding 3. Data preparation 4. Data Analysis 5. Star Rating 6.

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Investment planning

Fig. 1 Safety Rating process diagram

[Link] Collection
The data was collected by road survey for 4 accident prone sections of the Mysore road, namely
RV College, Mylasandra Gate, Madhu Fuel Station and Kengeri Police Station.
The following data was required for the project to give star rating:
Width of lane, Road curvature, Curve Quality, Shoulder strips, Condition of Road, Skid
resistance, Road side object, shoulder width etc.

2.2. Tabulation of data and calculation of star rating

All the above raw data is then tabulated and calculation is carried out. First, the star rating score
is calculated. It is calculated for a 500-metre segment of the road using:
Star rating score (SRS)is given by summation of the rash type score (CTS), Where:
 SRS indicates the road user’s relative risk of serious injury or death
 CTS = product of (Average speed, Flow influence, severity, Median traversability,
likelihood)
Where:
 Likelihood cite the risk factors which indicate the chances for initiation of a crash
 Severity cite the risk factors that indicate the crash severity
 Operating speed cite the risk factors that relate speed and the risks associated with it
 External flow influence relates the influence of one person on another while using the
road, and the risks of crash involved.
 Median traversability indicates the chances of a person to cross the median.
Star rating scores are calculated using following equation:
x – Factors multiplied (to the right)
+ - Factors added (to the right)
Factors are shown in Fig. 2. Star ratings are determined after calculation the SRS. They are
calculated by matching the SRS to the range of star rating as shown:
Table 1: Star Rating Score

Star Rating Star Rating Score

5 0 to < 2.5
4 2.5 to < 5
3 5 to < 12.5
2 2.5 to < 22.5
1 22.5 +

Where, 5 being the safest road and 1 being the most unsafe road.

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Fig 2: Calculation of Star Rating

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

3. Road safety rating

This chapter presents the details of the physical features of various road stretches under study.
The existing physical conditions of each road stretch are compared with the standard features of
road geometrics to check the deviations that lead to road safety risk. This information is later
used for the road safety rating. The study stretch is a part of National Highway 275, commonly
referred to as NH 275, that connects Bantwal town with Bangalore through Mysore and
Madikeri in Karnataka state, India. It is one of the important highways in Karnataka and India.

Table 2: Analysis of traffic data collected at RV College (12.9237° N, 77.4987° E)

Risk factors Category Risk factor Score

Road Attributes in likelihood
Width of Lane Wide 1.0
Road Curvature - -
Curve Quality Poor 1.25
Delineation Poor 1.2
Shoulder strips Not Present 1.25
Condition of Road Poor 1.4

Skid Resistance Unsealed Adequate 3.0

Product of the Risk factors in terms of likelihood 7.87

Road Attribute in terms of severity

Road side Severity Distance 1-5 m 0.8
Road side Severity Object Tree 60
Width of paved shoulder 1.2 m 0.83
Product of Road (severity) risk Factors
flow influence (External) 1500 0.50
Traversiblity of Median No 0
Average Speed 37.4 0.33
0

Runoff speed star rating score (passenger side)

Road Attributes in terms of likelihood
Width of Lane Wide 1
Road Curvature - -
Curve Quality Poor 1.25
DelineatiΟn Poor 1.20
Shoulder strips Not present 1.25
Condition of Road Poor 1.4

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Skid resistance Unsealed Adequate 3.0

Product of the Risk factors in terms of likelihood 7.875

Road Attribute in terms of severity

Road side Severity Distance 1-5 m 0.8
Road side Severity Object Tree 60
Width of paved shoulder 1.2 m 0.83
Product of Road (severity) risk Factors 39.84
flow influence (External) 1500 0.5
Average Speed 37.4 0.33
6.57

Head on Crash (Control)

Type of Risk factors Category Risk factor Score

Width of Lane Wide 1.0

Road Curvature - -
Curve Quality Poor 1.25
Delineation Poor 1.2
Shoulder strips Not Present 1.25
Condition of Road Poor 1.4

Skid Resistance Unsealed Adequate 3.0

Product of the Risk factors in terms of likelihood 7.56

Road Attribute in terms of severity

Physical median 1-
Type of Median 80
1.5m
Product of the Risk factors in terms of likelihood 80
Flow influence (External) 15000 0.185
Traversability of Median No 0
Average Speed 37.4 0.33
Head on Crash Star Rating Score 0
Head on Crash (Overtaking)

Skid resistance Unsealed adequate 3.0

Varying Speed Not Present 1.2

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Lanes 3 0.01
Product of road Attribute (Likelihood) Risk Factor 0.036
Road Attribute (severity)
Median Type 1-5m 80
Product of the Risk factors in terms of likelihood 80

Risk factors
Flow influence (External) 15000 0
Average speed 37.4 0.33
Head on Crash (Overtaking) Star Rating Score 0

Intersection
Type of Intersection 4-leg signalized 15
Quality of Intersection adequate 1
- -
Street Lighting Present 1
Skid Resistance Unsealed adequate 3.0
Sight distance for road users Adequate 1
Intersection characterization Not present 1.2
Speed Management Not Present
Product of Risk Factors in terms of Likelihood 54

Road Attribute in terms of severity

Risk factor Category Risk factor Score
Type of Intersection 4-leg signalized 15
Product of Risk Factors in terms of Likelihood 15
Flow influence (External) 1000-5000 vehicle 0.125
Average speed 37.4 0.33
SRS (Intersection) 33.41

Access to property
Property access point Commercial access 2
Service road for property access Not present 1.5
Product of Risk Factor in terms of Likelihood 3

Road Attribute in terms of severity

Property access point Commercial 50

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Product of Risk Factor in terms of Likelihood 50

Flow Influence (External) Default 0.01

Average Speed 37.4 0.33
Star Rating Score (Intersection) 0.495

SRS and Vehicle occupant star rating

Type of Crash SRS Star rating
Driver side Road Runoff 0
Passenger side Road Runoff 6.57
Head on crash due to lost control 0
Head on Crash due to overtaking 0
Intersection Score 33.41
Access to property 0.495
Total score and Star rating 40.475 1

4. Conclusions
After completing the data analysis at all the four locations, namely RV College, Mylasandra
Gate, Madhu Fuel Station and Kengeri Police Station, the star rating was found to be 1. This
shows that the road network in Bangalore is least safe for daily commute. Some points were
common and can be considered as common factors responsible for the bad Star Rating Score.
The common factors found were the following:
1. Absence of proper Traffic Management System at the junctions.
2. Lack of maintenance of the junctions in terms of Road attributes.
3. Traffic diversion was not available at all the junctions.
4. A facility for pedestrian traffic was absent.
5. Speed controlling measures are not taken at the junctions.
All these factors show the general trends of Indian Roads in terms of safety. Most of the Indian
roads fall under the category of least safe roads and require a lot of considerations and
improvements towards Road Safety.

Fig 3: Vehicles moving in wrong side Fig 4: Positioning of Pole

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ScTACE 2020 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1006 (2020) 012008 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/1006/1/012008

Fig 5: Tree in midst of the road features Fig 6: Damaged Traffic lights

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