Safety evaluation model of urban cross-river tunnel based on driving simulation

Abstract

Currently, Shanghai urban cross-river tunnels have three principal characteristics: increased traffic, a high accident rate and rapidly developing construction. Because of their complex geographic and hydrological characteristics, the alignment conditions in urban cross-river tunnels are more complicated than in highway tunnels, so a safety evaluation of urban cross-river tunnels is necessary to suggest follow-up construction and changes in operational management. A driving risk index (DRI) for urban cross-river tunnels was proposed in this study. An index system was also constructed, combining eight factors derived from the output of a driving simulator regarding three aspects of risk due to following, lateral accidents and driver workload. Analytic hierarchy process methods and expert marking and normalization processing were applied to construct a mathematical model for the DRI. The driving simulator was used to simulate 12 Shanghai urban cross-river tunnels and a relationship was obtained between the DRI for the tunnels and the corresponding accident rate (AR) via a regression analysis. The regression analysis results showed that the relationship between the DRI and the AR mapped to an exponential function with a high degree of fit. In the absence of detailed accident data, a safety evaluation model based on factors derived from a driving simulation can effectively assess the driving risk in urban cross-river tunnels constructed or in design.

Keywords:

• urban cross-river tunnel
• driving simulation
• safety evaluation
• analytic hierarchy process
• accident rate
• driving risk

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the support of this project by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) – E080701/51508325: Study on Alignment Safety Design Method of Urban Water-Crossing Tunnels.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [grant number E080701/51508325]; Study on Alignment Safety Design Method of Urban Water-Crossing Tunnels.