Larson Institute
Transportation Operations Program
Safety Research
Paul P Jovanis
Eric Donnell
Professor Emeritus
Associate Professor
Larson Institute interests lie in
analysis of safety challenges
• Road Safety Analysis – fundamental analysis
challenges
– State-level crash and roadway inventory data
– Study-specific operations data (e.g. speed),
especially related to geometric elements or safety
problems
– NDS data, including those beyond SHRP 2
• Human factors studies on test track and
simulators
Program possesses breadth and
depth in road safety research
• Significant activity by multiple faculty in application of statistical methods to
road safety
• FHWA, NCHRP, PennDOT, WashDOT, NYCDOT among sponsors
• Research started in early 2000’s prior to advent of Highway Safety Manual
Research Program
Active research team includes:
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Eric Donnell
Vikash Gayah
Paul Jovanis
Martin Pietrucha
Venky Shankar
Philip Garvey
• Numerous graduate students
Frank Gross
RJ Porter
Ken Wu
Jonathan Aguero-Valverde
Scott Himes
Wen Hu
VHB Associates
University of Utah
NCTU Taiwan
University of Costa Rica
VHB Associates
IIHS
Sub-specialty: Road Safety Analysis
• Pioneering research on application of
count regression to road safety
(Jovanis, Shankar)
• Crashes on roads a fundamental
spatial phenomenon, yet rarely take
advantage of this attribute in safety
analysis (Donnell, Hu, Jovanis,
Aguero-Valverde)
• Identification and use of comparison
site data in evaluation of safety
countermeasure effectiveness (Gross,
Jovanis, Donnell, Sasidharan)
Numerous studies support Highway
Safety Manual development and use
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Development of crash modification factors for
specific treatments - Donnell
Develop methods for crash modification factor
estimation – Jovanis, Donnell
Developing Safety Performance Functions – Donnell,
Gayah, Jovanis
Simultaneous modeling of crash frequency and
severity – Jovanis and Aguero
Several studies at interface of safety,
operations and design
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Development of a Crash Modification Factor for
Application of Safety EdgeSM on Two-lane Rural
Highways – Donnell
Entry Control Facility Geometric Criteria – Donnell,
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Safety Evaluation of Continuous Green-T Intersection –
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Brennan
Donnell
Reducing Roadway Departure Crashes at Horizontal
Curve Sections on Two-lane Rural Highways - Donnell
Driver visual perception is an area of
active research
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Evaluating the Clearview Typeface System for Negative Contrast
Signs - Garvey and Pietrucha
The Development of Optimal On-premise Electronic Message Center
(EMC) Lighting Levels and Sign Lighting Measurement Techniques –
Garvey and Pietrucha
Modeling the Dynamics of Driver’s Dilemma Zone Perception using
Machine Learning Methods for Safer Intersection Control - Garvey
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Naturalistic driving study (NDS) data
analysis is a strength
Methodological paradigms in
NDS– Shankar and Jovanis
Effects of omitted variable bias
on crash analysis with NDS –
Wu, Aguero, Jovanis and
Shankar
Relationship between crashes
and near crashes – Wu and
Jovanis
Screening Naturalistic Driving
Study Data – Wu and Jovanis
NDS SHRP 2 Central PA. data
collection site – Jovanis, Rado,
many others
But life is not as simple as it
seems . . .
Larson Institute interests lie in
analysis of safety challenges
• Road Safety Analysis – fundamental analysis
challenges
– State-level crash- spatial correlation; identification
of comparison groups
– Study-specific operations data (e.g. speed),
especially related to geometric elements or safety
problems
– NDS data, including those beyond SHRP 2
• Human factors studies on test track and
simulators
Thank You!!
Contact Information
Paul Jovanis
Eric Donnell
ppj2@psu.edu
edonnell@engr.psu.edu