| There are miniscule amounts of intersections in roadway networks, but is always a concern of safety. Many different countermeasures have been adopted to maintain safety at intersection. Previous studies have shown that Restricted crossing U-turn (RCUT) intersection implementation contributes to improving intersection safety by reducing the number of left turn and right angle crashes. RCUT intersection helps the minor road traffic to navigate safely through the intersection at heavy traffic major road. MUTCD has included RCUT as one of the cost-effective counter measure for intersection. In this study, three years before and three years after crash data, along with their original crash reports, were studied on ten different facilities in Louisiana to evaluate the safety effectiveness of RCUT installation.;Two different safety analysis statistical method---Improved Predictive method and Empirical Bayes method---were used to conduct analysis, which concluded that RCUT are success in reducing the total crashes at intersections. They are effectively addressing the targeted crashes Left Turn crashes decreased by 61%, Right angle decreased by 65%, Rear end decreased by 33%. The estimated CMF for RCUT intersection is 0.69 (for intersection only) and 0.86(for U-turn to U-turn, whole segment) based on improved prediction method. Whereas, Empirical Bayes method calculated the CMF for intersection as 0 .80, which implies that RCUT installation, on average, can reduce crashes by 20% at intersection. |
