Assessment of the Vulnerable Road User Safety Status in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi

Vulnerable road users (VRUs) have consistently been found to account for a disproportional number of road crash related injuries. VRUs can be defined as those road users who are considered to be more vulnerable to serious injuries, if involved in an accident. VRUs include pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users.

Even though internationally-accepted road and traffic engineering design guidelines have been adopted in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, a significant number of VRU related injuries and fatalities occur in the Emirate annually. Hence, there must be factors that have not yet been taken into account by commonly applied road design standards and traffic control practices. Even though there may be a number of statistics (e.g., in terms of number of injuries annually) indicating the magnitude of the problem associated with VRU safety, this information may not reveal the root causes of the safety problem plaguing pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Indeed, to date, there has been no in-depth road accident data analysis in conjunction with site investigations conducted in the UAE with the aim to study patterns associated with accidents involving VRUs. Thus, there is a need to conduct a detailed, in-depth investigation based on past road accident data as well as crash site visits (as shown in Figure 1) in order to identify accident patterns as a function of factors such as road design, geographical location, time of day, and traffic characteristics.

As such, all the analyses conducted and recommendations proposed in this study will be data-driven, as well as based on actual site visits and investigations. Three years’ (i.e., 2018-2020) worth of accident data shall be review and analyzed. All identified crash locations, as shown in Figure 1, must be visited and studied. Cost-effective road safety countermeasures will then be proposed accordingly. Ultimately, the information resulting from this project should provide guidance to Abu Dhabi Road authorities on what the main causes of VRU injuries are, as well as on where the locations more prone to accidents are and how to treat them.

Figure 1

In sum, VRU safety still is a major concern in the UAE and it demands further study. The main objectives of this research are threefold: (1) to quantify the current safety status related to VRUs in terms of accident frequency, severity, and economic costs; (2) to identify the key accident patterns, in terms of accident causes and locations, which can help Abu Dhabi Road authorities develop and implement safety plans to prevent similar accidents in the future; and (3) to propose cost-effective road safety countermeasures to treat identified accident-prone locations. It is anticipated that the implementation of recommendations provided by this research will allow Abu Dhabi Road authorities to plan for and design a more equitable and safer transport system.    

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Contributors:

• Dr Francisco Daniel B. Albuquerque (Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)
• Dina Awadalla (Research Associate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)