Simulated safety performance of rear-end and angled vehicle interactions at isolated intersections.

This paper applies a calibrated microscopic simulation model to assess the safety implications of signalization at a stop-controlled isolated intersection. Safety performance is measured in terms of a crash potential index (CPI) that makes use of time-specific vehicle parameters, such as deceleration rates, spacing, and speed profiles. Four performance measures are obtained: (i) average CPI/vehicle, (ii) CPI 85th percentile, (iii) number of vehicles with CPI > 0 (defined as interacting), and (iv) number of conflicts (defined in terms of a given CPI threshold). Two types of interactions are considered, namely rear end and angled. For rear-end interactions, CPI/vehicle was found to be significantly higher following the introduction of fixed signal controls. For angled interactions, CPI/vehicle was found to decrease with signalization. For both types of interactions, the CPI 85th percentile was found to decrease nonlinearly with signalization, especially for higher assumed volumes on the major approach. Rear-end vehicle interactions increased significantly following signalization and with increasing volume, whereas no such increase was observed for angled interactions. The key observation is that the number of vehicles subject to angled interactions was found to decrease after signalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]