Performance Measurement Using IRI and Collision Rates in the Province of Alberta

Sharif Tehrani, Saleh

Performance Measurement Using IRI and Collision Rates in the Province of Alberta

atmire.migration.oldid	1993
dc.contributor.advisor	Cowe Falls, Lynne
dc.contributor.author	Sharif Tehrani, Saleh
dc.date.accessioned	2014-04-17T17:15:39Z
dc.date.available	2014-06-16T07:00:30Z
dc.date.issued	2014-04-17
dc.date.submitted	2014	en
dc.description.abstract	The major objective of every highway agency in Canada is to provide a safe and reliable road network. Road safety is commonly evaluated by number of collisions while different performance measures are employed for evaluating the reliability and performance of roads. The International Roughness Index (IRI) is a widely used performance measure in Canada and Internationally. It is calculated from direct profile measurement of the pavement wheel paths and translated into metres per kilometre. In 1999, the Province of Alberta tied its performance publicly to a rolling three year target IRI that was tabled on the floor of the legislature. Subsequent annual business plans refer to the IRI and rehabilitation programs are developed on the basis of threshold values of IRI that are defined as good (<1.5), fair (1.5-1.9) or poor (>1.9). In this study, the definition of `good' (equal to IRI<1.5 in the Province of Alberta) is tested against the public’s perception using a survey tool. At selected sites in the Province, the driving public was asked about their opinion about the condition of the highway. Over 300 surveys were collected and the correlation between public perception and IRI was drawn using t-test and Psychometric Scaling Analysis. According to the results, Alberta Transportation threshold values of IRI do not match the road users' opinion and a new set of threshold values were suggested. The other part of this study evaluates the relationship between the number of collisions and IRI to estimate any measurable relationship between these two measures. The relationship between IRI and number of collisions is evaluated to see if number of collisions increases/decreases as a function of IRI, while all other characteristics of roads and traffic remains unchanged. Therefore, this study tried to fundamentally investigate and demonstrate a methodology that can consistently, objectively and robustly link IRI to road safety and work towards the development of a decision support tool for estimating the potential safety issues on the road network. The result showed that IRI can be used as a surrogate for safety and the number of collisions increase when the IRI value of the road increases.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Sharif Tehrani, S. (2014). Performance Measurement Using IRI and Collision Rates in the Province of Alberta (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27297	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27297
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11023/1416
dc.language.iso	eng
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.publisher.place	Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Engineering--Civil
dc.subject.classification	Road safety	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Collisions	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Road roughness	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Pavement management systems	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Rutting	en_US
dc.title	Performance Measurement Using IRI and Collision Rates in the Province of Alberta
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Civil Engineering
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true