Attila Borsos

56002020200

Publications - 28

How realistic a bicycle simulator can be? - A validation study

Attila Borsos Ágoston Pál Sándor Amira Hammami

Publication Name: Multimodal Transportation

Publication Date: 2025-03-01

Volume: 4

Issue: 1

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

The aim of this research is to objectively and subjectively validate the virtual reality Bicycle Simulator (BS) developed using off-the-shelf components at the University of Győr, Hungary. To this end, this research compares the performance of 32 participants in two real-world environments (Site 1: separated bicycle-pedestrian path and Site 2: advisory bicycle lane) and in their replication in virtual reality (VR). The objective measures collected for the comparison include speed and Cumulative Lateral Position (CLP), whereas subjective measures include the Perceived Level of Realism (PLR) based on participants’ self-reported perceptions in a post-experiment questionnaire. PLR is a new indicator that we propose using subjects' perceptions of speed, BS control, and VR representation. The combination of these subjective and objective measures is proposed as the Degree of Realism (DR) to standardise the classification of the realism level of a bicycle simulator. Subjectively, the results indicate that the BS provides a high level of safety and comfort for conducting such research. Subject characteristics have no significant influence on VR sickness scores or Perceived Level of Realism. Objectively, for both speed and CLP, we found no significant difference between on-site and the simulation measurements in the case of Site 1, but otherwise for Site 2. However, subjects were not able to accurately perceive either the actual or the relative differences. In conclusion, our bicycle simulator is a safe and comfortable traffic safety research tool that needs further improvement. The proposed preliminary concept of the degree of realism requires further investigation.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.multra.2025.100193

Transferability of safety inspection procedures for network-wide safety assessment of two-lane rural roads - an Italian-Hungarian experiment

Alessandro Di Graziano Giuseppina Pappalardo Attila Borsos S. Cafiso

Publication Name: Traffic Injury Prevention

Publication Date: 2025-01-01

Volume: Unknown

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Objectives: The new EU Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management requires Member States to classify the road network into at least three categories according to its safety level. This study examines the application and transferability of the procedures between EU countries. Methods: Our methodology consisted of two steps. First, we conducted a questionnaire survey among twenty Hungarian road safety inspectors, and second, we applied the Italian procedure to calculate the risk index and compare it with historical crash data. Two-lane rural roads were selected and divided into 200 m sections, excluding intersections. Road safety inspectors evaluated these using a matrix of 18 criteria based on video recordings. The risk index was calculated, together with a sensitivity analysis, and its consistency with the observed crash history was investigated. Finally, three homogeneous groups were identified using k-medoids cluster analysis. Results: The survey showed good acceptance of the process, but we also found differences in how inspectors rated certain criteria. Our analysis of inspectors’ ratings of severity showed that there were varying degrees of agreement. However, we also concluded that the three-level rating may help to reduce disagreement. Our risk index calculations used four years of crash data, and a moderate correlation between the crash rate and the risk index was found. By assigning a weighted average of adjacent sections and performing a k-medoids cluster analysis, we found that the optimal number of clusters is three, and these show a meaningful relationship with crash frequency. Conclusion: Regarding the application of the Italian procedure in Hungary to meet the requirements of the new EU RISM, the results are promising, and the lessons learned may also be useful for other countries.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1080/15389588.2025.2510572

Safety of cyclists interacting with autonomous vehicles: A combined microscopic simulation and SSAM analysis

Attila Borsos Amira Hammami

Publication Name: Travel Behaviour and Society

Publication Date: 2024-07-01

Volume: 36

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

The aim of this paper is to investigate the safety of cyclists while interacting with autonomous vehicles (AVs) in an uncontrolled T-intersection using PTV Vissim microsimulation combined with the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM). For the microsimulation, three cycling behaviours were constructed (cautious, normal, and aggressive), and two AV behaviours (cautious and normal) were adopted. 87 h of microsimulation resulted in 230 conflicts. The type and nature of these conflicts, as well as two temporal indicators and four speed-related indicators were analysed. Nearly 96% of the conflicts were rear-end collisions, and almost 70% were conflicts where the cyclist was the first to arrive at the conflict point. Interestingly, the least involved cycling behaviour in conflicts was aggressive and the most involved was cautious. A significant relationship was found between severity clusters of temporal indicators and cycling behaviour. It is also concluded that an important future research direction would be the construction of a two-dimensional conflict diagram with severity thresholds specifically for bicycle-vehicle interactions.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.tbs.2024.100805

Evaluation of Autonomous Vehicle Takeover Performance in Work-Zone Environment †

Attila Borsos Viktor Nagy Ágoston Pál Sándor Diovane Mateus da Luz

Publication Name: Engineering Proceedings

Publication Date: 2024-01-01

Volume: 79

Issue: 1

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

The advent of autonomous vehicles (AV) could revolutionize the automotive industry by significantly improving safety, efficiency, and accessibility. Despite their potential to improve traffic safety by reducing human error, their integration into existing transportation systems presents significant challenges. This is particularly evident in scenarios involving takeover events, where there is a transition of control from the vehicle to the human driver. Our driving simulator study, involving 14 drivers in a work-zone environment, provides critical insights into the takeover performance of level 3 to level 5 AVs. The findings suggest that the successful integration of AVs depends on their seamless incorporation into existing systems and the readiness of drivers to adapt to this emerging technology.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/engproc2024079059

Analysis of Drivers’ Path Follow Behaviour

Attila Borsos Ernö Horváth Gergő Ferenc Ignéczi

Publication Name: Proceedings of the International Conference on Informatics in Control Automation and Robotics

Publication Date: 2024-01-01

Volume: 2

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 93-100

Description:

Lane keeping is a complex, multi-dimensional problem in terms of driving tasks. The lane-following driver models typically treat the control task as an end-to-end problem where the entire control chain is modelled as a human driver. However, the driver does not actively control the vehicle all the time, but follow a drift and compensate strategy, resulting in oscillations around their planned path. We have separated this oscillation scheme by filtering drivers’ selected offset to the centerline of the lane. It has been shown that there is a certain amount of offset error up to which drivers drift away from the planned path. At this point drivers intervene by applying torque to the steering wheel and steer the vehicle back onto the path. This type of drift and compensate strategy was modelled using Model Predictive Control (MPC) with event-based weights of its cost function. The proposed driver model calculates both the intervention point and the weights of the MPC based on real drivers’ data. As a result, the model together with the MPC can accurately plan the oscillation path of the drivers, contributing to a better understanding of how the driver tolerates offset errors.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.5220/0012889100003822

Analyzing the Potential Impacts of the Speed Compliance Behavior of Autonomous Vehicles †

Richard Horváth Balázs Horváth Attila Borsos Viktor Nagy

Publication Name: Engineering Proceedings

Publication Date: 2024-01-01

Volume: 79

Issue: 1

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Many researchers argue that autonomous vehicles (AV) will create a safer and more efficient transport infrastructure. However, some studies have drawn attention to potential problems in relation to how AVs and human-driven vehicles will co-exist. We investigated the effect of speed compliance behavior of AVs on an urban two-lane road section with alternating speed limits of 50 and 30 km/h. A Vissim microsimulation model was used where we gradually increased the traffic volume and the market penetration rate (MPR) of AVs. We found that under low traffic flow conditions the increase in MPR will lead to a decrease in the average speed and worsening of the average travel time. Under medium and, specifically, under saturated conditions, a high share of AVs can bring stability to the system. They can also significantly improve the speed compliance rate.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/engproc2024079063

Evolution of the Road Network Topology of Central European Housing Estates

Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Pál Hegyi

Publication Name: Infrastructures

Publication Date: 2023-10-01

Volume: 8

Issue: 10

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

The analysis of road network topology has attracted the attention of researchers in the past few decades. In this study, the road topology of housing estates in a few selected Central European countries (Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia) was analysed. This research was carried out in three steps: (1) the road network topology of different decades from the 1950s to the 1980s was described, (2) the ratio of intersections and dead-ends was investigated, and (3) the connectivity indices were analysed and compared. The research was carried out using ESRI ArcGIS software. The results show that the design of road networks built in different countries is similar in the housing estates studied. When analysing the road networks over time, significant differences could be found in the case of Hungary for housing estates built after the 1960s. In general, connectivity has become more important, as it has gradually increased over time.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/infrastructures8100142

Communication between Autonomous Vehicles and Pedestrians: An Experimental Study Using Virtual Reality

Emese Makó Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Symbat Zhanguzhinova Ágoston Pál Sándor

Publication Name: Sensors

Publication Date: 2023-02-01

Volume: 23

Issue: 3

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

One of the major challenges of autonomous vehicles (AV) is their interaction with pedestrians. Unofficial interactions such as gestures, eye contact, waving, and flashing lights are very common behavioral patterns for drivers to express their intent to give priority. In our research we composed a virtual reality experiment for a pedestrian crossing in an urban environment in order to test pedestrians’ reactions on an LED light display mounted on a virtual AV. Our main research interest was to investigate whether communication patterns influence the decision making of pedestrians when crossing the road. In a VR environment, four scenarios were created with a vehicle approaching a pedestrian crossing with different speeds and displaying a special red/green sign to pedestrians. Here, 51 persons participating in the experiment had to decide when crossing is safe. Results show that the majority of people indicated they would cross in the time windows when it was actually safe to cross. Male subjects made their decision to cross slightly faster but no significant differences were found in the decision making by gender. It was found that age is not an influencing factor, either. Overall, a quick learning process was experienced proving that explicit communication patterns are self-explaining.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/s23031049

The Concept of BENIP – Built Environment Information Platform

Balázs Horváth J. Szép Attila Borsos

Publication Name: Infocommunications Journal

Publication Date: 2023-01-01

Volume: 2023

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 29-34

Description:

The built environment and its components require a continuous and uninterrupted flow of information between its various players. In this paper a conceptual framework is proposed describing the role of these players as well as the nature of the links between them. The authors introduce a new term, a conceptual framework which can be used as a platform called BENIP (Built ENvironment Information Platform).

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.36244/ICJ.2023.SI-IODCR.5

Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Roundabout Capacity

Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Viktor Nagy Othmane Boualam

Publication Name: Sustainability Switzerland

Publication Date: 2022-02-01

Volume: 14

Issue: 4

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Studying the impact of AVs on our road infrastructure offers a lot of potential in the transportation domain; one of these issues is how capacity will be affected. This paper presents a contribution to this research area by investigating the impact of AVs on the capacity of single-lane roundabouts using a microsimulation model. For the development of the model, a roundabout situated in Győr (Hungary) was selected and field data on the roundabout geometric characteristics as well as traffic volumes were used. Simulations using Vissim were run for various scenarios based on varying input traffic volumes and market penetration rates of AVs to assess queue lengths. The highway capacity manual (HCM) roundabout model was used to estimate the capacity of the existing roundabout. Values of follow-up times and critical gaps were set to decreasing as the penetration rate of AVs increases. The results demonstrated that 20% and 40% AVs in the flow would increase leg capacities by about 10% and 20%, respectively. Furthermore, a reduction in excessive queue lengths was estimated and capacities and queue lengths were calculated by legs. It was found that these are highly influenced by the distribution of flows among legs, and the share of flows in various directions.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/su14042203

A literature review on the conflict analysis of vehicle-pedestrian interactions

Attila Borsos A. Kizawi

Publication Name: Acta Technica Jaurinensis

Publication Date: 2021-11-24

Volume: 14

Issue: 4

Page Range: 599-611

Description:

An alternative to traffic safety analysis based on historical crash data the use of non-crash events is becoming more popular thanks to the rapid improvement in video-based vehicle trajectory processing. By means of Surrogate Measures of Safety (SMoS) in traffic conflict studies, the most critical elements on the road network can be identified and the probability of accidents can be proactively determined. This paper aims to summarize the state-of-the-art research regarding the analysis of pedestrian-vehicle interactions at unsignalized crossings, to synthetize the previous studies using Surrogate Measures of Safety (SMoS), and to identify the research gaps.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.14513/actatechjaur.00601

Application of Bivariate Extreme Value models to describe the joint behavior of temporal and speed related surrogate measures of safety

Attila Borsos

Publication Name: Accident Analysis and Prevention

Publication Date: 2021-09-01

Volume: 159

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Limitations of historical crash data and the advantages of surrogate measures of safety have already been stressed by various authors. To describe nearness-to-collision, mostly time-based indicators are applied, and there is a consensus among researchers that speed-related indicators are needed to account for the severity dimension. There have been attempts to fit bivariate Extreme Value models to predict the number of crashes, however modeling crash frequency together with severity has received much less attention. The aim of this paper is to apply Extreme Value models to various pairs of temporal and speed-related indicators in order to investigate the dependence structure between them as well as to construct probability based risk levels and examine them in relation to severity levels. Bivariate threshold excess models were fitted to a dataset of left-turning and straight moving vehicle interactions recorded in a signalized intersection. The dependence structure between variable pairs were thoroughly investigated; it was concluded that temporal and speed related indicators were found independent, which means that road users getting close to each other in time does not necessarily come with high speeds. Therefore these indicators should be combined in order to properly predict severity; a temporal indicator on its own is not enough to make inferences about the severity of events. Using the calculated joint probability of events risk levels were constructed illustrating the events of equal probability.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2021.106274

Sight distances at unsignalized intersections: A comparison of guidelines and requirements for human drivers and autonomous vehicles

Mariusz Kieć Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Zsófia Magyari

Publication Name: Archives of Transport

Publication Date: 2021-01-01

Volume: 59

Issue: 3

Page Range: 7-19

Description:

Many traffic accidents are caused by unforeseen and unexpected events in a site that was hidden from the driver's eyes. Road design parameters determining required visibility are based on relationships formulated decades ago. It is worth reviewing them from time to time in the light of technological developments. In this paper, sight distances for stopping and crossing situations are studied in relation to the assumed visual abilities of autonomous vehicles. Current sight distance requirements at unsignalized intersections are based among others on speeds on the major road and on accepted gaps by human drivers entering or crossing from the minor road. Since these requirements vary from country to country, regulations and sight terms of a few selected countries are compared in this study. From the comparison it is remarkable that although the two concepts, i.e. gap acceptance on the minor road and stopping on the major road have different backgrounds, but their outcome in terms of required sight distances are similar. Both distances are depending on speed on the major road: gap sight distances show a linear, while stopping sight distances a parabolic function. In general, European SSD values are quite similar to each other. However, the US and Australian guidelines based on gap acceptance criteria recommend higher sight distances. Human capabilities and limitations are considered in sight field requirements. Autonomous vehicles survey their environment with sensors which are different from the human vision in terms of identifying objects, estimating distances or speeds of other vehicles. This paper compares current sight field requirements based on conventional vehicles and those required for autonomous vehicles. Visibility requirements were defined by three vision indicators: distance, angle of view and resolution abilities of autonomous cars and human drivers. These indicators were calculated separately for autonomous vehicles and human drivers for various speeds on the main road and for intersections with 90° and 60° angles. It was shown that the required sight distances are 10 to 40 meters shorter for autonomous vehicles than for conventional ones.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0014.9553

Are collision and crossing course surrogate safety indicators transferable? A probability based approach using extreme value theory

Haneen Farah Marjan Hagenzieker Aliaksei Laureshyn Attila Borsos

Publication Name: Accident Analysis and Prevention

Publication Date: 2020-08-01

Volume: 143

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

In order to overcome the shortcomings of crash data a number of surrogate measures of safety have been developed and proposed by various researchers. One of the most widely used temporal indicators is time-to-collision (TTC) which requires the road users to be on a collision course. Road users that are strictly speaking not on a collision course actually might behave and take evasive actions as if they were, thus indicating that such near-miss situations might also be relevant for safety analysis. Taking that into account, a more flexible indicator T2, which does not require the two vehicles to be on a collision course, describes the expected time for the second road user to arrive at the conflict point. Recently extreme value theory (EVT) offering two approaches, block maxima (BM) and Peak over Threshold (POT), has been applied in combination with surrogate indicators to estimate crash probabilities. Most of this research has focused on testing BM and POT as well as validating various surrogate safety indicators by comparing model estimates to actual crash frequencies. The comparison of collision course indicators with indicators including crossing course interactions and their performance using EVT has not been investigated yet. In this study we are seeking answers to under what conditions these indicators perform better and whether they are transferable. Using data gathered at a signalized intersection focusing on left-turning and straight moving vehicle interactions our analysis concluded that the two indicators are transferable with stricter threshold values for T2 and that POT gives more reasonable results.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.aap.2020.105517

Can people recognize more than six road categories?

Gabriella Iván Csaba Koren Attila Borsos

Publication Name: Acta Polytechnica Hungarica

Publication Date: 2019-01-01

Volume: 16

Issue: 6

Page Range: 207-222

Description:

The importance of human factors, in road design and traffic safety, has been increasing recently. As part of the human-centered design, schemata, as mental representations, induce road user expectations, as well as, trigger behavioral patterns. In road design this concept is called “self-explaining roads”, meaning that road users automatically drive according to an expected behavior and speed. This requires different categories of roads, each with homogenous characteristics and a notable difference between them. This paper investigates how many unique categories road users are able to recognize.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.12700/APH.16.6.2019.6.13

Searching possible accident black spot locations with accident analysis and gis software based on GPS coordinates

Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Pál Hegyi

Publication Name: Pollack Periodica

Publication Date: 2017-12-01

Volume: 12

Issue: 3

Page Range: 129-140

Description:

There are several methods for the analysis of road accidents in a road network. In Hungary from 2011 GPS coordinates are used to identify the location of personal injury accidents. This method significantly improves the display of locations of accidents on the map, which can be then analyzed using GIS tools. Accident black spots are the most dangerous places in road networks identified by the density of the accidents in the network. One of the analysis methods is the accident density searching. The methods and algorithms used in some software may show differences in relation to one another. The aim of this research is comparing two applications by investigating the local road network in Györ. The analysis was made using the WEB-BAL accident analysis software using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise procedure and the QGIS software using the kernel density estimation method. The former is the official accident database and online software used for accident investigations and the latter is an open source geographic information system. The results are visualized in accident density plots and black spot maps.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1556/606.2017.12.3.12

Evaluation of the effects of auxiliary lanes on road traffic safety at downstream of U-turns

Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Andreas Vesper Inder Pal Meel

Publication Name: Transportation Research Procedia

Publication Date: 2017-01-01

Volume: 25

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 1931-1945

Description:

To assess the safety impact of auxiliary lanes at downstream locations of U-turns, the Traffic Conflict Technique (TCT) was used. On the basis of the installed components at those locations, four types of U-turns were identified: those without any auxiliary lane, those with an acceleration lane, those with outer widening, and those with both an acceleration lane and outer widening. To give relative importance to high severity conflicts, weighting coefficients were used on the basis of the Czech TCT. The Severity Conflict Rate (SCR) was assessed by applying weighing coefficients to the observed conflicts related to the traffic volumes. According to the results, a comparatively highest value of SCR and a lowest level of road safety occurs if a location has no auxiliary lane. The highest level of road safety occurs if the layout includes a single component, either an acceleration lane or outer widening. If there are two components at the downstream zone, this causes larger area for conflict interactions and results in moderate level of road safety.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2017.05.186

Special Issue on CogInfoCom-Supported Approaches, Models and Solutions in Surface Transportation

Attila Borsos S. Cafiso Marian Tracz P. Baranyi

Publication Name: Intelligent Decision Technologies

Publication Date: 2017-01-01

Volume: 11

Issue: 4

Page Range: 415

Description:

No description provided

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3233/IDT-170311

Recognition of built-up and non-built-up areas from road scenes

Gabriella Iván Csaba Koren Attila Borsos

Publication Name: European Transport Research Review

Publication Date: 2016-06-01

Volume: 8

Issue: 2

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Purpose: In many cases, it does not follow from the road design, whether the given scene is within or outside the posted built-up area. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate road scenes, how far they can be considered being of built-up and non-built-up nature, as well as to identify road scenes which are ambiguous and therefore less safe. Methods: Two methods were used to assess the degree of unambiguous or ambiguous nature of road scenes. In the first approach, a survey of requested speeds at various road scenes was performed with 500 respondents. Here clearly non-built-up and built-up sites, as well as unclear sites were compared. In the second method, the recognition process of drivers was simulated by an image classification software. The classifier was trained by 100 clearly built-up and 100 non-built-up pictures. Four test runs followed, each using 200 pictures from different roads. Results: From the speed choice study, results have shown that in unclear situations (e.g. transition between built-up and non-built-up areas) the standard deviation of chosen speeds is higher than in unambiguous situations. In the image classification study the trained classifier worked well for road scenes which are definitely of built-up or non-built-up nature. Furthermore, as expected, for unclear situations, the classifier gave uncertain classifications. Conclusions: Each of the two methods produces an output indicator, the standard deviation of speeds and the certainty score, respectively. Both indicators can serve to identify road scenes leading to uncertain and therefore risky situations.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1007/s12544-016-0205-9

The role of human factors in road design

Attila Borsos Hans Joachim Vollpracht Sibylle Birth

Publication Name: 6th IEEE Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications Coginfocom 2015 Proceedings

Publication Date: 2016-01-25

Volume: Unknown

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 363-367

Description:

This paper investigates the role of Human Factors in road design with a focus on road safety. In the first part of the paper an introduction is given on the concept of Human Factors in general. Then some basic principles related to traffic safety are tackled. Finally, Cognitive Info-Communications as a possible tool to improve driver capabilities is mentioned.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2015.7390620

Comparison of Italian and Hungarian Black Spot Ranking

Dániel Miletics Attila Borsos S. Cafiso C. D'Agostino

Publication Name: Transportation Research Procedia

Publication Date: 2016-01-01

Volume: 14

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 2148-2157

Description:

Black spot ranking is an important tool for finding the sites with potential safety improvement on the road network. The EU Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management also demands the ranking of high accident concentration sites. This paper gives an introduction to localizing high accident concentration sites and the indicators used by Italy and Hungary. Accident and traffic volume data are gathered for motorway sections from both countries. Safety ranking is made using two conventional indicators, absolute number of accidents and accident rate. A more sophisticated ranking using the Empirical Bayes method is applied. Expected average crash frequency with Empirical Bayes adjustment is calculated. Based on the estimation of the crash frequency, the Critical Crash Rate (CCR) was added to identify and rank black spots. This additional performance measure is able to take into account traffic volume as required by the EU Directive. Results of the Empirical Bayes method are compared with the conventional procedures. It is concluded that the results are not comparable; inasmuch as there are modifications in the order of black spots. Based on the comparison of results recommendations are given to change the practice in both countries.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.230

Safety Ranking of Railway Crossings in Hungary

Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Miklos Gabor

Publication Name: Transportation Research Procedia

Publication Date: 2016-01-01

Volume: 14

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 2111-2120

Description:

Regarding traffic safety, railway crossings are crucial points in the rail and road network. In Hungary the safety ranking of railway crossings has been performed since 1993 and the results have been used for selecting unsafe locations and for prioritizing safety measures. Prioritization is based on a complex point system taking into account accident data, traffic volumes and various traffic engineering aspects. Weights of various indicators were based on engineering judgement. Although this method has been renewed a few times, there is a need to update this method involving more thorough statistical methods. The objective of this paper is to calibrate a new model and to compare it with previous models. A sample of about 1700 railway crossings satisfying a few requirements (railway with public service, traffic volume data available) was set up. The first part of the paper describes data collection. Five years (2010-2014) of accident data, AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic) for rail and road, speed limits and further data (road pavement width, control devices, crossing angle, alignment, number of tracks, sight distances) were gathered. The modeling was conducted in two steps. First, each variable was entered into the model alone to see which ones significantly affect accident frequency. As a next step, two-variable models were built where expected injury accident frequency is predicted by annual daily road traffic and annual daily rail traffic. The sample was also split up into subgroups based on the type of control devices in order to analyze their effect on safety. Models are proposed using the Generalized Linear Modeling approach (GLM) assuming a negative binomial error structure. The results give estimation of the impacts of explanatory factors on the safety of railway crossings. Annual daily road traffic and annual daily train traffic are significant predictors. A number of predictors such as crossing angle, track alignment, number of tracks and sight distances turned out to be not significant. As far as the type of control devices are concerned, as expected coefficients are decreasing, hence safety is increasing in the following order: passive crossings, flashing lights, flashing lights + half barriers. Based on the above results, the complex point system used by practitioners for safety ranking was simplified considerably leaving out variables which turned out to be not significant.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.226

Development of Safety Performance Functions for Two-Lane Rural First-Class Main Roads in Hungary

Attila Borsos Gyula Orosz John Ivan

Publication Name: Traffic Safety Volume 4

Publication Date: 2016-01-01

Volume: 4

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 87-100

Description:

This chapter describes a modeling effort to define accident prediction models for first-class main roads outside built-up areas in Hungary using variables that are available and believed to exert an influence on safety performance. Models are proposed using the Generalized Linear Modeling (GLM) approach assuming a negative binomial error structure. The chapter also overviews design characteristics and accident statistics of two-lane rural first-class main roads. Five variables are used to predict accident frequencies, Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), posted speed, curve, roadway width and shoulder width. Traffic volume is used as an exposure to accidents and the length of the homogenous sections. Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) have been widely used in the traffic safety field for analyzing how the safety performance of road facilities is related to various road characteristics. The chapter reviews literature to demonstrate problems associated with conventional regression techniques used for accident prediction.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1002/9781119307853.ch6

Central European Comparative Study of Traffic Safety on Roundabouts

Mariusz Kieć Attila Borsos Jiří Ambros Roman Ondrejka Erzsébet Hóz Štefan MacHciník Jan Novák

Publication Name: Transportation Research Procedia

Publication Date: 2016-01-01

Volume: 14

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 4200-4208

Description:

Roundabout is a popular and safe type of road intersection, which has become widely used around the world, including Central European countries. To conduct statistical comparative study of traffic safety on roundabouts, accident prediction models (safety performance functions) have to be developed. With this aim accident, traffic and geometry data for samples of rural roundabouts in four Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) were collected and used in statistical modelling, using state-of-the-art generalized linear modelling framework. Both individual and combined models were developed, which enabled insight into relationships between explanatory variables and accidents, as well as comparison with models from international studies. In the end study limitations are summarized and further improvements outlined.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.391

Motor vehicle speeds: Recommendations for urban sustainability

Attila Borsos Thomas Jonsson John Ivan

Publication Name: Transportation Research Record

Publication Date: 2012-12-01

Volume: Unknown

Issue: 2301

Page Range: 1-8

Description:

This paper explores how vehicle speeds are related to equitable, environmental, and economic sustainability of urban areas. This relationship is manifested primarily through associations between vehicle speeds and road crash casualties, severity of pedestrian crashes, generation of harmful emissions, and relative desirability of neighboring land. Reported research findings describing these associations are presented and discussed. Reported experiences with implementing various methods of influencing vehicle speeds, including automated enforcement, self-explaining roads, and in-vehicle systems, are presented and discussed. To support increased sustainability of urban areas, the following steps are recommended: (a) speed limits should be set to limit casualty risk and not to accommodate driver choices, (b) roadways in developed areas should be designed with 10-ft lanes and on-street parking and sidewalks, and (c) vehicle speeds in downtown and residential areas should be kept below 25 mph (preferably 20 mph). The paper also identifies gaps in knowledge about speed and sustainability.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3141/2301-01

Long-term safety trends as a function of vehicle ownership in 26 Countries

Csaba Koren Attila Borsos Nalini Ravishanker John Ivan

Publication Name: Transportation Research Record

Publication Date: 2012-01-12

Volume: Unknown

Issue: 2280

Page Range: 154-161

Description:

The objective of this paper was to model the evolution of road safety as a function of motorization level. The authors completed a country-level as well as a time-dependent analysis focusing on countries for which data were available for a long period of time (1965 to 2009). For the statistical analysis, a function describing road safety trends (decline, turning, improvement) was proposed. Two coefficients in the model were estimated for each country and for each year, and their change over time is discussed. The results showed that the shape of the curve changed over time. In some countries, the decrease in the mortality rate became slower over time; however, a greater potential to improve road safety existed in other countries. Possible reasons for the general positive trends in road safety are the continuous improvement in engineering solutions (better infrastructure, safer cars) as well as road users who are better trained and skilled because of education and experience. In addition to the factors mentioned previously, the increased speed by which safety-related information and knowledge are disseminated contributes to the decrease in the differences in safety levels among countries.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3141/2280-17

Conflict Analysis of Pedestrian-Vehicle Interactions

Attila Borsos A. Kizawi

Publication Name: Chemical Engineering Transactions

Publication Date: 2023-01-01

Volume: 107

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 625-630

Description:

Walking is the most sustainable transportation mode, while pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users. Understanding the nature of their interactions with vehicles, particularly at unsignalized crossings, is critical to improving road safety. Due to advances in video-based vehicle trajectory processing, road safety analysis methods have evolved significantly, and there is an increasing preference for the use of Surrogate Measures of Safety (SMoS) to describe the road safety situation at a given location. There is a lack of such studies for pedestrian-vehicle interactions. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap and present preliminary results derived from video recordings at an unsignalized pedestrian crossing in Győr, Hungary. Post-encroachment time (PET) as a SMoS was generated using an automated road safety analysis software, TrafxSAFE, a product of Transoft Solutions. 594 videos (of approximately 85 h and 48 min) were analyzed in this study. It is concluded that there are differences in the probability of conflicts depending on the direction from which the pedestrian and the vehicle approach the crossing. Conflicts where pedestrians and vehicles approach the crossing in the same lane are slightly more likely to occur, as there is less time for the road users to take evasive action.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3303/CET23107105

Recognition of road types and speed choice

Gabriella Iván Csaba Koren Attila Borsos

Publication Name: 6th IEEE Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications Coginfocom 2015 Proceedings

Publication Date: 2016-01-25

Volume: Unknown

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 343-347

Description:

This paper outlines the recognition process of road types and its influence on speed choice. The appearance and spreading of the term "cognitive infocommunications" led the authors to rethink some of their earlier work from the cognitive perspective. In order to assess the recognition of road types and speed choice a picture sorting exercise and an on-line speed choice survey was completed. Limitations and extensions of the method are also considered.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1109/CogInfoCom.2015.7390616