Identification of high risk metropolitan intersection sites in Perth, Australia.

As convergence points for road users approaching from multiple directions, intersections have more opportunities for conflicts, thus higher crash risk than other parts of the road network. Given the limited resources available for road safety, it is important to identify high risk intersections so that they can be prioritised for infrastructure improvement. This study used a three-stage approach to identify intersections in Perth, Western Australia: using Road Trauma Risk Analysis, then Comparative Safety Performance Analysis and finally ranking the intersections by the KSI (Killed and Serious Injury) metric. These methodologies were developed by Main Roads Western Australia. Crash data from 2011 to 2015 were used in the analyses. The results identify the top high risk intersections for each intersection type (by speed environment and control type). Recommendations are made for extensions to this process to improve identification of high risk intersections, and the use of a taxonomy to identify candidate treatments.