Investigation of Low Visibility Related Crashes in Florida. Final Report October 2018-February 2019

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Investigation of Low Visibility Related Crashes in Florida. Final Report October 2018-February 2019

J. Lee / M. A. Abdel-Aty

Florida is among the top states in the United States with fatal crashes resulting from reduced visibility conditions due to fog or smoke, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This project aims at identifying hotspot clusters for fog/smoke crashes in Florida, and investigating hot segments, hot intersections, and hot freeway/expressway ramps in the hotspot clusters. In Task 1, fog/smoke crash data of the period of 2013-2017 were collected from Signal Four Analytics. In Task 2, eight hot clusters were identified using the kernel density estimation (KDE) method, and found fog/smoke crashes are concentrated in Duval, Orange/Osceola, Pinellas/Hillsborough/Polk, Lee, Escambia, Alachua, Leon, and Miami-Dade Counties. In Task 3, the eight hot clusters identified in the previous task were examined more closely, and specific segments, intersections, and freeway/expressway ramps with frequent fog/smoke crashes were identified. Eighty-one segments, forty-nine intersections, and forty-five freeway/expressway ramps were discovered as fog/smoke crash hotspots.