Weather and Climate Impacts on Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety PDF Download

Author: United States Department of Transportation
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781508593836
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has an interest in how adverse weather may influence trucking industry practices, and what climate change might mean for future FMCSA efforts to reduce weather-related crashes. Weather conditions influence commercial motor vehicle (CMV) operations and driver safety through wet pavement, impaired visibility, heavy precipitation, frozen precipitation, flooding, high winds, extremes of temperature, and other factors. Climate variability and climate change may also increase these exposures by affecting the distribution, frequency, or intensity of those weather events. Regional, State, and/or local impacts projected by climate change studies may have future implications for CMV safety. Should climate change result in more frequent or intense storms affecting CMVs, the historic decline in weather-related crashes may level off. This could pose challenges to FMCSA's primary mission, and the agency may need to explore different strategies for reducing weather-related crashes, such as education and training programs or technologies that could alert drivers of adverse weather conditions. The purpose of this report is to provide the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration with an analysis on how existing weather conditions may affect the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) on our Nation's highways. Further, it also looks at the general impacts projected by climate change studies and hypothesizes how possible changes in weather patterns and extreme storms could affect CMV operations in the future. This includes climate changes that increase the potential of weather-related CMV crashes and those that may impact trucking industry practices to require a response in FMCSA regulatory enforcement.

Author: Terrance Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781321735390
Category : Rain and rainfall
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Traffic safety and rain-related crashes are a major concern for engineers, planners, and emergency officials. Texas has more roads than any other state; therefore, the study of the factors that cause crashes is crucial to reducing the risk. Traffic safety is significantly impacted by weather conditions. This study contributed to transportation safety by providing an in-depth analysis of rain-related crashes in Texas. The first study used fatal crash data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to explore the spatial and temporal distribution of rain-related fatal crashes. The Getis-Ord Gi* statistic was used to identify clear and distinct spatial clustering patterns of rain-related fatal crashes and their correlation with rainfall. Fatal crash data were obtained from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) website maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The spatial statistical analysis revealed the spatial patterns of rain-related fatal crashes that are clustered in different counties depending upon rain conditions. The second study contributed to traffic safety by assessing the impact of rain and by conducting a statistical analysis of FARS crashes from 1982 to 2011. Logistic regression was used to identify the dominant factors associated with rain-related fatal crashes. The rain-related crash factors were categorized and examined at the state and county levels and were classified as environmental-related, roadway-related or driver-related. This study results can be used to aid the traffic safety professionals in the planning and design of roads. The final study adopted a matched-pair model to quantify the relative crash risk ratio during rainy conditions on two different areas in Texas: a segment of an interstate highway and an urban center from 2006 to 2013. Crash data were extracted from the Crash Records Information System database maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation. Hourly rainfall data was obtained from the National Weather Service's West Gulf River Forecast Center Multisensor Precipitation Estimates. Comparison of crashes during paired dry and rainy periods indicates that the relative risk ratio during rainy periods was greater than 1.0 for all road segments during the entire analysis period. The results indicate that rain conditions increase the crash risk when other factors are kept constant. The knowledge gained from this matched-pair study can be used to reduce rain-related crashes and further traffic safety countermeasures. The first method used in this research was aimed to study the spatial distribution of rain-related fatal crashes at the county level. The second method used in this study was aimed to use logistic regression to identify rain-related crash factors for Texas at the state and county levels. The third method used in this study was aimed to quantify relative crash risk at a fine resolution with a matched-pair method. The methodology developed in this research to gather and analyze crash data at the state, county, and road segment levels can be used to identify the causes of and reduce rain-related crashes. The benefits of this approach are discussed in more detail in the conclusions and recommendations.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309166578
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
Weather has broad and significant effects on the roadway environment. Snow, rain, fog, ice, freezing rain, and other weather conditions can impair the ability of drivers to operate their vehicles safely, significantly reduce roadway capacity, and dramatically increase travel times. Multiple roadway activities, from roadway maintenance and construction to shipping, transit, and police operations, are directly affected by inclement weather. Some road weather information is available to users currently, however a disconnect remains between current research and operations, and additional research could yield important safety and economic improvements for roadway users. Meteorology, roadway technology, and vehicle systems have evolved to the point where users could be provided with better road weather information through modern information technologies. The combination of these technologies has the potential to significantly increase the efficiency of roadway operations, road capacity, and road safety. Where the Weather Meets the Road provides a roadmap for moving these concepts to reality.

Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Public Works and Transportation. Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description

Author: Michael A. Rossetti
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobile driving in bad weather
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has an interest in how adverse weather may influence trucking industry practices, and what climate change might mean for future FMCSA efforts to reduce weather-related crashes. Weather conditions influence commercial motor vehicle (CMV) operations and driver safety through wet pavement, impaired visibility, heavy precipitation, frozen precipitation, flooding, high winds, extremes of temperature, and other factors. Climate variability and climate change may also increase these exposures by affecting the distribution, frequency, or intensity of those weather events. Regional, State, and/or local impacts projected by climate change studies may have future implications for CMV safety. Should climate change result in more frequent or intense storms affecting CMVs, the historic decline in weather-related crashes may level off. This could pose challenges to FMCSA's primary mission, and the agency may need to explore different strategies for reducing weather-related crashes, such as education and training programs or technologies that could alert drivers of adverse weather conditions.

Author: Chris Baglin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780309271172
Category : Emergency management
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
"Extreme weather such as floods, hurricanes, snow storms, and prolonged heat test the people and infrastructure that make up our transportation systems. This study examined eight recent cases of extreme weather in the United States from the perspectives of transportation operations, maintenance, design, construction, planning, communications, interagency coordination, and data and knowledge management." -- Preface.

Author: Division on Earth and Life Studies
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309185408
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
The Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS) have released the pre-publication version of TRB Special Report 290, The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation, which explores the consequences of climate change for U.S. transportation infrastructure and operations. The report provides an overview of the scientific consensus on the current and future climate changes of particular relevance to U.S. transportation, including the limits of present scientific understanding as to their precise timing, magnitude, and geographic location; identifies potential impacts on U.S. transportation and adaptation options; and offers recommendations for both research and actions that can be taken to prepare for climate change. The book also summarizes previous work on strategies for reducing transportation-related emissions of carbon dioxide--the primary greenhouse gas--that contribute to climate change. Five commissioned papers used by the committee to help develop the report, a summary of the report, and a National Academies press release associated with the report are available online. DELS, like TRB, is a division of the National Academies, which include the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council.

Author: U.S. Department of the Interior
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781499526721
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
The purpose of this report is to provide the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) with an analysis on how existing weather conditions may affect the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) on our Nation's highways. Further, it also looks at the general impacts projected by climate change studies and hypothesizes how possible changes in weather patterns and extreme storms could affect CMV operations in the future. This includes climate changes that increase the potential of weather-related CMV crashes and those that may impact trucking industry practices to require a response in FMCSA regulatory enforcement.

Author: Tim Ryley
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1780524412
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
This topical volume covers the intersection between transport and climate change, with papers from the 'Transport & Climate Change' session of the RGS-IBG conference in London, September 2010. It considers the role of transport modes at varying spatial dimensions and a range of perspectives on the relationship between transport and climate change.

Author: Katrina Marie Hecimovic
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobile driving in bad weather
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description
Current literature predicts that climate change may increase both the occurrence and severity of heavy rainfall events and winter precipitation in the Northeast United States. A potential increase in intense precipitation events related to climate change would theoretically also cause an increase in weather-related delays, increase in overall traffic disruptions, a substantive shift in travel behavior, and presumably a negative effect on safety and maintenance operations of highways. This current research study examines the existing impacts from both an operational and behavioral perspective of how weather events currently impact overall safety along routes in Massachusetts. A secondary objective of the research effort is to evaluate the extent to which this information is captured on the crash report form for subsequent use in safety analyses. Utilizing data from Massachusetts Department of Transportation, National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and the University of Massachusetts Data Warehouse, crash statistics were examined during varied levels of weather events and compared with non-weather conditions. In addition, crash report forms were analyzed in comparison to NCDC weather data to determine the correlation between of the weather specific fields of the reports and to help determine if crashes were weather-related. The results from the investigation show how the character of precipitation events impact traffic safety including both occurrence and intensity levels and in conjunction with existing weather predictions the relationships developed in this study are useful in evaluating how changes in extreme precipitation events projected for the Northeast may impact drivers' safety in the future.