Study Details

Study Title: Effects of Transverse Rumble Strips on Safety of Pedestrian Crosswalks on Rural Low-Volume Roads in China

Authors: Liu et al.

Publication Date:JAN, 2011

Abstract: "The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the impacts of transverse rumble strips in reducing crashes and vehicle speeds at pedestrian crosswalks on rural low-volume roads in China. Using crash data reported at 366 pedestrian crosswalks, the research team conducted an Empirical Bayesian (EB) before-after study using comparison groups to evaluate the effective of transverse rumble strips in reducing crashes at pedestrian crosswalks. It was found that the deployment of transverse rumble strips may reduce expected crash frequency at pedestrian crosswalks by 24%. The research team collected more than 15,000 speed observations at 12 sites in Jiangsu and Guangdong Provinces in China. The speed data analysis results show that transverse rumble strips significantly reduce vehicle speeds in vicinity of pedestrian crosswalks on rural low-volume roads with posted speed limits of 60 km/hr and 80 km/hr. On average, the mean speed at crosswalks declined 9.2 km/hr on roads with a speed limit of 60 km/hr; and 11.9 km/hr on roads with a speed limit of 80 km/hr. The 85th percentile speed declined 9.1 km/hr on roads with a speed limit of 60 km/hr; and 12.0 km/hr on roads with a speed limit of 80 km/hr. However, the speed reduction impacts were not found to be statistically significant for the pedestrian crosswalk on the road with a speed limit of 40 km/hr. The study also looked extensively at the influence area of transverse rumble strips on rural low-volume roads. Speed profiles developed in this study show that the influence area of transverse rumble strips is generally less than 0.3 km."

Study Citation: Liu, P., Huang, J., Wang, W., Xu, C., "Effects of Transverse Rumble Strips on Safety of Pedestrian Crosswalks on Rural Low-Volume Roads in China." Presented at the 90th Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C., (2011).


CMFs Associated With This Study

Category: Roadway

Countermeasure: Install transverse rumble strips at pedestrian crosswalks on rural low-volume roads

CMF CRF(%)QualityCrash TypeCrash SeverityRoadway TypeArea Type
0.76242 StarsAllAllNot SpecifiedRural