Roadside Hardware

The Highway Safety Information System (HSIS) is a multi-state database in which crash, roadway inventory, traffic, driver, vehicle, and other information can be linked into analysis files for a wide range of safety studies. HSIS differs significantly from the Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and General Estimation System (GES), the two other DOT national databases. These systems, based on crash data supplemented by roadway inventory data at the crash site, are by definition records of "failures"  (crash sites) in the system. HSIS answers questions regarding the relationships of roadway design and operations with safety where both roadway and traffic information for the "failures"  and the "successes" (sites with very few or no crashes) must be present in the database. The lab is unique in the sense that it contains the only "national" linkable database that contains common identifiers on crashes, roadway inventory, and exposure, which allows one to associate the risk of crashes with roadway and traffic variables. Also, the lab has computerized photologs for certain states and Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

Products and Services

• Performed safety evaluation of continuous shoulder rumble strips installed on freeways.
• Analyzed the effects of airbags on severity indices for roadside objects. 
• Studied accident models for rural two-lane roads, segments, and intersections.
• Studied the relationship between safety and the geometric design consistency measures for rural two-lane highways. 
• Studied accidents on secondary roads and countermeasures.
• Researched safety effects of the conversion of two-lane rural highways to four-lane highways.
• Identified safety effects of cross-section design for rural, four-lane, non-freeway highways.
• Studied accident models for rural intersections -- four-lane by two-lane, stop-controlled, and two-lane signalized intersections.
• Studied statistical models of at-grade intersections.
• Studied statistical models of accidents on interchange ramps and speed-change lanes. 
• Analyzed accident causes and potential countermeasures related to large trucks on two-lane roads.
• Evaluated truck crashes using GIS-based crash referencing and analysis system. 
• Studied truck rollover crashes on ramps. 
• Investigated injury severity in truck/passenger-car rear-end collisions. 
• Analyzed injury and non-injury crashes in California work zones. 
• Studied effects of tow-away reporting threshold on crash analysis results. 
• Investigated National Highway System roadways in the HSIS States. 

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