Agricultural vehicles and sustainable safe road traffic: solving conflicts on arterial highways

Addressing the issues of traffic safety in rural areas presents a constant challenge. The mix of light and heavy vehicles and the considerable differences in speed among these traffic participants result in high risks and delays for the faster vehicles. Agricultural vehicles (AVs) in particular have...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transport reviews 2003-10, Vol.23 (4), p.471-488
Main Authors: JAARSMA, CATHARINUS F., BOTMA, HEIN, VAN ARK, RONALD G. H., WILLEMS, GEERT P.A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Infrastructural Plans
Infrastructurele plannen
plattelandswegen
rural roads
tractors
traffic patterns
traffic safety
transport
trekkers
vehicles
verkeerspatronen
verkeersveiligheid
voertuigen
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Addressing the issues of traffic safety in rural areas presents a constant challenge. The mix of light and heavy vehicles and the considerable differences in speed among these traffic participants result in high risks and delays for the faster vehicles. Agricultural vehicles (AVs) in particular have such an impact on traffic, especially when using arterial highways. This paper reviews the problems of safety and delays that AVs cause on arterial highways, and the appropriate mitigation. The concept of 'sustainable safety' in The Netherlands focuses on these problems, because of the proposed construction of parallel roads alongside all arterial highways. However, Dutch accident statistics cannot justify the high costs for the construction of parallel roads alongside 7000 km of arterial highways. Delays experienced by fast traffic are another reason for separating AVs from other road users with parallel roads. Alternative measures alongside the arterial highway, such as passing bays, restricting AVs to travelling at off-peak only and improving the conspicuity of the AVs, may be more cost-effective ways of reducing delays and/or improving traffic safety on arterial highways. Another solution may be to eliminate the need for AVs to use the arterial highway by altering their routes. For this purpose, land reallocation projects (as practised in Holland) can provide a useful tool.
ISSN:0144-1647
1464-5327
DOI:10.1080/0144164022000022741