CONTENTS 1 Subject description 11 1.1 Research questions 12 1.2 Subjects of this study 14 2 Characteristics of transportation networks and road networks 19 2.1 Literature review 21 2.2 Criteria for evaluating (road) networks 30 2.3 Summary 31 3 Road network structure and road classification 32 3.1 Functionality of roads 32 3.2 Homogeneity of traffic within a road class 43 3.3 Summary 44 4 Route choice in road networks 45 4.1 Route choice as part of Sustainable Safety 45 4.2 Route choice in general 46 4.3 Navigation systems 55 4.4 Conclusions 57 5 Road safety aspects of road network structure and road classification 59 5.1 Network structure and travel behaviour related to crash numbers 60 5.2 Relating characteristics of network structure, degree of access, road classification and road design to traffic volumes 62 5.3 Relating characteristics of network structure, degree of access, road classification and road design to crash figures 67 5.4 Conclusions 72 6 Detecting the effects of changes in route choice on road safety 74 6.1 Methodological issues 74 6.2 Route criteria, route scores and route stars 90 6.3 Retrieving conflicts from micro-simulation models 98 6.4 Other conflict based indicators 102 7 Quantitative relationships between calculated conflicts and recorded crashes 109 7.1 Descriptions of the study area and the micro-simulation model 109 7.2 Conflicts and crashes 111 7.3 Conclusions and recommendations 120 8 Quantitative relationships between route criteria, calculated conflicts, and travel time 122 8.1 Examples of applying DV scores to the study area 122 8.2 Approach, methodological issues and description of data 132 8.3 Analysing scores, numbers of conflicts, and travel times 139 8.4 Conclusions 155 9. Integrated network design 156 9.1 Integrated network design for improving road safety 156 9.2 Designing a road network that is inherently safe 161 9.3 Analysing the network of the study area 164 9.4 Conclusions and recommendations 170 10 Adapting the network structure to improve safety 176 10.1. Route choice in S-Paramics 176 10.2. Simulations and analyses 182 10.3. Conclusions and recommendations 192 11 A safe mixture of network structure, traffic circulation and route choice 194 11.1. From network structure to safety indicators 194 11.2. Network Safety Procedure 196 12 Conclusions, discussion, recommendations 199 12.1. Conclusions 199 12.2. Discussion and reflection 203 12.3. Recommendations 204 References 207 Appendix A Traffic circulation systems 217 Appendix B Distribution of conflict scores 222 Appendix C Examples of integrated network design 224 Appendix D Selected nodes 229 Summary 233 Samenvatting 237 Curriculum Vitae 243 SWOV-Dissertatiereeks 245