Flashers at Rural Intersections

Project summary:

This work described in this plan addresses research and development needs from the Research Council on Transportation and Traffic Flow which fall under Driver Behavior and Guidance (human factors and behavior of drivers) and Traffic Safety Improvements (reduction of accidents and avoiding collisions). The objectives of this project are: 1) To identify flasher designs currently in use at rural intersections; 2) To evaluate a variety of flasher prototypes in the Human Factors Research Laboratory's driving simulator; 3) To observe driver behavior at existing flasher intersections; 4) To propose standard designs for flashers at rural Minnesota intersections which might reduce the high speeds and accident rates at these intersections. The objectives will be accomplished by: 5) Conducting a search of the relevant literature; 6) Selecting the best existing designs using a panel of transportation experts; 7) Designing simulation experiments to evaluate existing and designs presumed to be improvements; 8) Conducting simulation experiments to identify the better designs; 9) Evaluating these designs at rural intersections; 10) Proposing standards for flashers at rural intersections based on the experimental findings. These results will be submitted for review and a final report prepared which will include the comments of the reviewers.