Creating a Real-Time Road Safety Evaluation of Collision Risks Based on Traffic State Estimation

Status: Active
Project Start Date: 08/18/2026

Summary:

Vehicle-to-vehicle collisions are a major cause of traffic fatalities, and addressing them is needed for Minnesota’s Toward Zero Deaths. Such collisions are more likely to occur during certain traffic conditions. Past research found that “turbulence” in freeway traffic flow (variations in speed and flow among different lanes) was correlated with higher crash rates. If we could detect traffic conditions with high collision risk, we could take mitigating actions to reduce collisions or fatalities from collisions. Such actions might include reducing incident response times by focusing monitoring at traffic management centers on high-risk areas or pre-emptively relocating emergency response teams. In the long-term, road sections with patterns of high collision risks could be modified with signage, pavement markings, or other design changes to alert drivers or influence their behavior. This project will enable such mitigation by creating real-time estimates of crash risk for traffic engineers.