Development of methodology to analyze road landscape of accident black-spots; a case study with reference to southern expressway, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

Driving is an action of humans, which allows him/her motion through space from place to place. The road landscape creates the character and the spatial quality, which is vital to decide the driving safe. ‘Southern Expressway’, which was introduced recently, allowed people to move quickly from Western to Southern destinations of Sri Lanka and time to time accidents were also recorded. So, the spatial qualities of the existing road landscape might have impacted on the accidents happened on Southern Highway from its initiation. Identification of accident prone areas (Black-Spots) is a vital factor of road safety management process. The study focused on to develop a methodology to analyze road landscape with using a visual analysis in an identified Black-Spots in Southern Highway. Data is collected and analyzed as two phases; one is from recorded accidents data and other from live recording of the expressway driving stretch. In this study highlighted that the possibilities of analyze identified ‘Black-spots’ by using Photographic analysis method. In conclusion, the study emphasizes that the identified methodology to analyze road landscape can be developed up to more advanced level to identify driving behaviour related Black-Spots and to take mitigatory actions.