Assessing the Risk of Crash for Trucks on Onset Yellow
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Summary
This study addresses the safety risks associated with heavy vehicles (trucks) approaching signalized intersections during the onset of the yellow phase. Traditional dilemma zone protection systems, designed primarily for passenger vehicles, often fail to adequately protect trucks due to their longer stopping distances and slower acceleration. Furthermore, existing surrogate measures of safety, such as the dilemma zone, identify regions of risk but do not quantify the magnitude of that risk, limiting their utility for economic and operational trade-off analyses. The research aims to develop a more precise safety metric, the "dilemma hazard function," which quantifies the probability of traffic conflict for both passenger and heavy vehicles. The researchers utilized field data collected at a high-speed intersection in Noblesville, Indiana, employing advanced wide area detector (WAD) technology and video monitoring to track vehicle behavior. They developed a behavioral model using probit analysis to estimate the probability of drivers choosing to stop or go based on their perceived time to the stop bar. This approach allowed for the calculation of dynamic dilemma zone boundaries and the derivation of the dilemma hazard function, which estimates the likelihood of minor and severe traffic conflicts at specific spatial locations. The study also analyzed the cost of delay associated with extending green phases to mitigate these conflicts. Key findings indicate that heavy vehicles require significantly more protection than passenger vehicles; specifically, trucks need to be protected for twice as long to achieve the same level of safety. The traditional dilemma zone boundaries, typically defined by a 10–90% probability of stopping, were found to be insufficient for trucks, which exhibit different deceleration and acceleration characteristics. The developed dilemma hazard function successfully quantified the level of risk, providing a stochastic measure that varies by location rather than a binary safe/unsafe designation. The study demonstrated that while green extension systems are effective under low traffic volumes, they deteriorate in performance during medium to heavy traffic conditions, leading to increased delays and reduced safety benefits. The significance of this research lies in its proposal of a site-specific, quantifiable safety measure that can inform more efficient traffic signal control strategies. By leveraging advanced detector technology, the dilemma hazard function can be tailored to individual intersections, eliminating the need for a universal standard. This approach facilitates a marginal cost-benefit analysis, allowing engineers to balance safety improvements against operational delays. The findings suggest that adaptive sensor systems and refined signal control algorithms, which account for the distinct behaviors of heavy vehicles, can enhance intersection safety and efficiency, particularly in rural high-speed environments.
Key finding
Heavy vehicles require protection for twice as long as passenger vehicles to achieve the same level of safety at high-speed intersections.
Methodology
field_study
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (7 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 20 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes