Absence of paved shoulders

Please refer to this document as follows: Goldenbeld, Ch., Schermers, G., van Petegem, J.W.H
(2017), Absence of paved shoulders, European Road Safety Decision Support System,
developed by the H2020 project SafetyCube. Retrieved from www.roadsafety-dss.eu on DD
MM YYYY

Please note: The studies included in this synopsis were selected from those identified by a
systematic literature search of specific databases (see supporting document). The main criterion for
inclusion of studies in this synopsis and the DSS was that each study provides a quantitative effect
estimate, preferably on the number or severity of crashes or otherwise on road user behaviour that is
known to be related to the occurrence or severity of a crash. Therefore, key studies providing
qualitative information might not be included in this synopsis.
Absence of paved shoulders

1 Summary
Goldenbeld, Ch., Schermers, G., van Petegem, J.W.H , September 2016

1.1 COLOUR CODE: RED

The absence of (paved) shoulders increases the risk of run-of-road crashes on rural highways. Paved
shoulders are likely to reduce total crashes or shoulder-related crashes, but at the same time may
increase fatal crashes, suggesting that possible speed increase by paved shoulders may counteract
its safety effect. The effectiveness of shoulders in reducing crashes depends upon the interaction
with other characteristics of the roadway, specifically the number of lanes lane width and traffic
volume.
1.2 KEYWORDS
hard shoulder, soft shoulder, hard strip, paved shoulder, unpaved shoulder, no shoulder, absence of
shoulder, crashes
1.3 ABSTRACT
A road shoulder is the section of a roadway that lies immediately adjacent to the travel lane (or
driven carriageway). The absence of a paved shoulder has been identified as a risk factor in studies
on two-lane rural highways. Paved shoulders may increase safety by providing a recovery area for
drivers who have left the travelled lane and a place for a driver to maneuver to avoid crashes.
However, shoulders may increase crash risk by conflicts caused by vehicles stopped on the shoulder
and by inviting higher speeds. Most studies showed that the absence of paved shoulder was
associated with an increase in crashes. One study showed that although the presence of shoulders
was associated with decreases in injury and property damage crashes, it was also associated with
increases in fatal crashes. Another study showed that the presence of paved shoulders was
associated with larger safety effects than the presence of unpaved shoulders. In general , the
evidence suggests that paved shoulders reduce total and shoulder-related crashes, but the possible
speed enhancing effect of (wide) paved shoulders may increase fatal crashes.

1.4 BACKGROUND
1.4.1 Definitions of shoulders
A road shoulder is defined as the section of a roadway that lies immediately adjacent to the
carriageway (Labi, 2006). Figure 1 presents an illustration of shoulder as part of the roadway and
road environment.

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Figure 1. Roadway cross sectional elements, based on FHWA 1986 reported in Labi (2006).

1.4.2 Which safety outcomes are affected by shoulders?

The effects of shoulders on road safety has been studied in terms of a number of safety outcomes
but predominantly in terms of crash frequency (number of crashes) and less so in terms of injury
outcomes (number of injured persons). The most used outcome measures were total crashes or a
subgroup of shoulder-related crashes.

1.4.3 How is the effect of shoulders on crashes studied?

Nearly all studies investigated the effect of presence shoulders and shoulder width by developing
Accident Prediction Models (APMs) through the application of Generalised Linear modelling (GLM)
statistical techniques. Also most of the studies investigated the relationship between the number of
crashes (outcome variable) and any number of road design and other features (the independent or
predictor variables) and take the form of Poisson or Negative binomial (NB) models.

This synopsis focusses on studies conducted between 1995 and 2016. The coded studies were
limited to the USA since these were the studies with the best data and methodology. A few
European studies on shoulders have been published (reported in RISER, 2006), but these were often
published in Danish, French, German or some other language and many concerned motorways.

1.5 OVERVIEW OF RESULTS

A total of 12 studies were selected as candidate studies for coding. Of these only 5 were found to be
suitable and provided sufficient methodological detail allowing the effects to be coded. The 5
studies differed in terms of outcome variables, the analysis period (period of time over which crash
data were recorded), the variables included in the model, and statistical modelling procedures.
Meta-analysis of these results was therefore not sensible nor advised.

The results can be briefly summarised as follows:

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Absence of paved shoulders

• 5 USA-studies were coded on shoulders, 2 of which related risk to traffic volume, 2 of which
related risk to shoulder width, and 1 contrasted paved vs. unpaved shoulders;
• 3 studies showed that the absence of paved shoulder was associated with an increase in crashes
(Zegeer and Council, 1995; Harwood et al., 2000; Abdel-Rahim & Sonnen, 2012)
• 1 study showed that prensence of paved shoulders was associated with larger safety effects
than presence of unpaved shoulders (Hallmark et al., 2013)
• 1 study indicated that though presence of shoulders was associated with decrease of injury and
property damage crashes, it was also associated with increase in fatal crashes (Bamzai et al.,
2011).

The results of 4 of the 5 selected studies were consistent in showing that absence of (paved)
shoulders on 2 lane rural higways is associated with an increase in total crashes (or shoulder-related
crashes). However, in contrast to these positive findings, one recent study indicated that the
presence of shoulders may increase fatal crashes while at the same time reducing injury and
property damage only crashes (Bamzai et al., 2011). In general, studies indicate that paved
shoulders reduce total and shoulder-related crashes, but under some conditions wide paved
shoulders may increase fatal crashes, likely through their speed enhancing effect.

1.6 NOTES ON ANALYSIS METHODS

The effect of shoulders on rural 2-lane roads has been mostly studied in USA. Some studies have
also been done in Europe, but these are not in English language or not concerned with rural
highways.The studies that have been undertaken are generally based on statistical regression
models using different sets of dependent and independent variables producing findings that are
difficult to compare. As most authors mention, results are study-specific or state-specific limiting
transferability of the results to other states or countries. The effect of absence of shoulders has not
been systematically studied under varying conditions, for all road user groups and all crash and
injury types.

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2 Scientific overview

2.1 LITERATURE STUDY

Shoulders placed adjacent to travel lanes serve a number of functions including emergency
stopping and pull off areas, recovery area for driver error, and pavement edge support (Stamatiadis
et al., 2009). Paved shoulders also allow drainage of water away from the trafficked section of the
roadway, increase the effective width of the traffic lanes, and therefore increases the lateral
clearances between opposing vehicles on an undivided road (Ogden, 1996). Also, the shoulder may
be used to provide a space for very slow vehicles to allow faster vehicles to overtake, and allows
moving vehicles to overtake vehicles disabled in the traffic lane (Ogden, 1996).

The use of shoulders by stopped vehicles (e.g. in the case of a breakdown or similar) may pose a
hazard. Past research has shown that 11% of fatal freeway crashes are related to vehicles stopped on
shoulders (Stamatiadis et al., 2009). The same review also presents evidence that wider shoulders
may encourage higher operating speeds because they may communicate to the driver the presence
of wider space for correcting errors (Stamatiadis et al., 2009).

In general shoulders are part of the carriageway and their effectiveness depends upon other
characteristics of the roadway. Specifically, the number of lanes, lane width, and shoulder width are
all interrelated, and the dimensions of any of these elements typically has an effect on the other
elements (Stamatiadis et al., 2009; iRap, 2013). Also the possible use of shoulders by vulnerable road
users may play a role in safety effects (iRap, 2013).

Reviewing American studies on safety effect of shoulders, Bamzai et al. (2011) observe the
following:
• Concerning multilane highways there is mixed evidence for safety effects of wide shoulders,
with several studies showing safety effects but others showing the opposite: more crashes on
sections with wide shoulders.
• On rural multi-lane highways, the optimal shoulder widths would be 6-9ft. In one study it was
found that using a 6-ft shoulder width decreased crash rate by 16 percent.
• Concerning 2-lane rural highways the evidence indicates that safety effects of presence of paved
shoulders depend upon factors such as lane width, shoulder width, and traffic volume. In
general, the larger the lane width, the smaller the required shoulder width can be to reduce
crashes. For 2 lane rural highways with high traffic volumes the difference in crash rate between
highways paved and unpaved shoulders may decrease.
• In one large scale study on 2 lane rural higways widening of shoulder widths from no shoulder to
1-3ft, to 4- 6 6ft, and to 7-9ft was found to reduce related crashes by 6 percent, 15 percent, and
21 percent, respectively.

In their (brief) review of paved shoulders Hallmark et al (2013) conclude the following:
• Addition of paved shoulders is especially effective in reducing run-of-road crashes
• In general roads, and specifically 2 lane rural highways, with paved shoulders have lower crash
rates than roads (highways) with unpaved shoulders of the same width.
• Most but not all studies indicate that paved shoulders offer a significant safety benefit for 2 lane
rural highways.

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• Whether shoulders were paved or unpaved and shoulder width had a greater effect on crash
• rates than lane width. Wider shoulders tend to have fewer crashes on rural two-lane highways.

At the European level, several EU-research projects have been concerned with safe road shoulders:
• RISER ( “Roadside Infrastructure for Safer Roads”) was a European project that aimed at the
identification of danger zones, drawing up guidelines, carrying out inspections and giving
trainings (RISER, 2006).
• EuroRAP (“European Road Assessment Programme”) is a programme which gives roads
(including the road shoulder) a safety score (EuroRAP, 2009).
• SafetyNet offers Safety Performance Indicators for roads and road shoulders (Hakkert et al.,
2007).
• FEMA (Federation of European Motorcyclists' Associations) is dedicated to motorcycle-friendly
safety barriers at European level (FEMA, 2005).

2.2 DESCRIPTION OF AVAILABLE STUDIES

2.2.1 What is the relationship between crashes and shoulders
5 studies were selected for coding on the basis of providing information on safety effects of
presence versus absence of paved shoulders. The focus was on studies between 1995-2016, but one
study was included that analysed data before that period (Zegeer & Council, 1995). Although this
study uses data from the 1980s, the study outcomes still merit attention in view of the size of its
database and the studied interactions between lane width and road width.

The 5 studies all concerned safety effects of shoulders versus no shoulders on 2 lane rural highways
in the USA. The 5 studies differed in several respects. Some studies analysed total crashes (Abdel-
Rahim & Sonnen, 2012; Hallmark et al., 2013) whereas others analysed subgroups of crashes
(Harwood et al., 2000; Bamzai et al, 2011; Zegeer & Council, 1995). One study analyses crashes
according to injury injury levels (Bamzai et al., 2011), but 4 others used no injury distinction. All 5
studies used unique different databases, with different lengths of accident periods, and all studies
used unique analysis models.

Two studies related safety of shoulders to traffic volume (Harwoord et al., 2000; Abdel-Rahim &
Sonnen, 2012), two studies related safety of shoulders to shoulder width (Bamzai et al., 2011,
Zegeer and Council, 1995), and one study specifically compared paved verus unpaved shoulders
(Hallmark et al., 2013).

Zegeer and Council (1995) found that paved shoulders with widths of 2, 4, 6 and 8 ft. (versus no
shoulders at all) were associated with percentage accident reductions of 43%, 52%, 59%, 65% when
lanes were widened with 3ft, with 35%, 45%, 53%, 61% when lanes were widened by 2 feet, and with
26, 37, 47, 55% when lanes were widened by 1 foot (1 feet = 0.3048 m). According to Zegeer and
Council, one foot increase shoulder width yields about 8 and 7% decrease in accident rate on paved
and unpaved shoulders respectively.

For rural two-lane highways with 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 vehicles/day (ADT), Harwood et al.
(2000) estimated the crash modification factors for no shoulder versus a standard 6 foot shoulder to
be 1.10, 1.24, 1.35, 1.50 and 1.50. Their results revealed that a road without paved shoulders will
have between 10 and 50% more crashes atADT levels of between 500-2500 vehicles/day when
compared to a road with a standard 1,8m paved shoulders.

Abdel-Rahim & Sonnen (2012) found the following safety effects for absence of shoulder on 2-lane
rural highways:

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• The Crash Modification Factors for rural 2-lane highways with no/very narrow shoulders (< 1 ft or
33cm) were 1.16 for all crashes , 1.17 for single-vehicle crashes, and 1.15 for multiple-vehicle
crashes. This corresponds to an average increase in crashes of 16 percent when compared to
highways with a 3 ft (0,9m) wide shoulder. This estimate has been corrected for possible
differences in traffic volume which was one of the predictors in the statistical model
• For low-volume highways, the average increase in crashes for highways with no shoulders was
at 13 percent when compared to highways with a 3 ft shoulder width (CMFs 1.13, 1.14, 1.11 for all
crashes, single vehicle crashes and multiple vehicle crashes).

Hallmark et. al. (2013) estimated the expected change in total crashes for paved versus unpaved
shoulders to be 8.8% after one year (the 95% CI for the ratio is [0.050, 0.124] indicating an expected
reduction in crashes between 5.0% and 12.4% after one year).

In contrast to previous positive findings, Bamzai et al. (2011) found that adding paved 6 ft or 8 ft
shoulders on 2-lane rural highways led to increases in fatal shoulder-related crashes (6ft/8ft: -8/-11%
reduction), but decreases in injury (5%/8% reduction) and Property Damage Only crashes (25%/43%
reduction).

The effects of (paved) shoulders (vs. no shoulders) on 2-lane rural highways can thus be summarised
as follows:
• 3 studies with significant accident reductions for shoulders vs. no shoulders
• 1 study indicating larger crash reductions for paved shoulders compared to unpaved shoulders
• 2 studies indicating larger crash reductions on rural higways with higher traffic volumes
• 2 studies indicating larger crash reductions with wider shoulders
• 1 study indicating larger crash reductions for paved shoulders compared to unpaved shoulders
• In contrast to positive findings: 1 study with significant increase in fatal crashes and decreases in
injury and PDO crashes

Overall (based on all crashes) the studies seem to suggest that absence of (paved) shoulder on 2-
lane rural highways leads to an increase in the number of crashes. However, speed enhancing effects
of (broad) shoulders may counteract safety improvement.

Table 1 summarises the main findings.

Table 1 Main study outcomes

Author, yr. Simplified summary of main outcomes

Zegeer & ↑ Paved shoulders of 2,4,6,8 ft. (versus no shoulders) at all were associated with percentage accident
Council 1995 reductions of 43, 52, 59, 65% when lanes were widened with 3ft., with 35, 45, 53, 61 % when lanes were
widened with 2 ft., and with 26, 37, 47, 55% when lanes were widened with 1 ft.

Harwood 2000 ↑ For rural two-lane highways with 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 vehicles/day (ADT), the crash modification
factors for no shoulder vs. standard 6 ft. shoulder were 1.10, 1.24, 1.35, 1.50 and 1.50.

Bamzai 2011 ↑↓ For 2-lane rural highways, adding paved 6 ft or 8 ft shoulders led to increases in fatal shoulder-related
crashes (6ft/8ft: -8/-11% reduction) but decreases in injury (5%/8% reduction) and PDO crashes (25%/43%
reduction).

Abdel-Rahim ↑ The Crash Modification Factors for rural 2-lane highways with no/very small shoulders (< 1 ft) were 1.16, 1.17,
2012 and 1.15 for all crashes, single-vehicle crashes, and multiple-vehicle crashes, respectively. For low-volume
highways, the CMFs were 1.13, 1.14, 1.11 for all crashes, single vehicle crashes and multiple vehicle crashes,
respectively.

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Hallmark 2013 ↑ The expected change in total crashes for paved vs. unpaved shoulders was 8.8% after one year (the 95% CI
for the ratio is [0.050, 0.124] indicating an expected reduction in crashes be-tween 5.0% and 12.4% after one
year).

2.3 ANALYSIS METHODS

2.3.1 Introduction
The estimates in the 5 coded studies were subject to different statistical models with different sets
of dependent and independent variables and therefore the estimates are not directly comparable.
Therefore the results do not lend themselves for meta-analysis. Below we describe the methods of
coded studies.

Although the results by Zegeer and Council (1995) are based on data from the 1980s, the study
outcomes still merit attention in view of the size of its database and the studied interactions
between lane width and road width . An accident prediction model was developed for two-lane,
rural roads and used to determine the expected effects of lane- and shoulder widening
improvements on related accidents. The model was based on analysis of data for nearly 8 050 km
(5,000 miles) of two-lane highway from seven states. The studied accident types included run-off-
road (fixed object, rollover, and other run-off-road accidents), head-on, and opposite- and same
direction sideswipe accidents, which together were termed as "related accidents. In this study, the
information on crash relationships for lanes, shoulders, and bridges (and corresponding
effectiveness information for countermeasures) were for two-lane, rural roads. The predictive model
applied to two-lane, rural roadways with lane widths of 8 to 12 ft (2.4 to 3.7 m), shoulder widths of
zero to 12 ft (3.7 m) (paved or unpaved), and traffic volumes of 100 to 10,000.
Harwood et al. (2000) used an approach to crash prediction on 2 lane rural highways in Minnesota
and Washington that combined the use of historical crash data, regression analysis, before-and-
after studies, and expert judgment to make safety predictions. An expert panel met and used the
findings of the literature review as the basis for (1) selecting the final set of geometric and traffic
control elements for which Crash Modification Factor (CMFs) could be developed; and (2)
quantifying those CMFs. For roadway segments, the final CMFs included all of the variables in the
roadway segment base models plus additional variables.

Using a 6-foot-wide (1,8m) paved shoulder as a base value, the authors determined the crash
modification factor (CMF) of roads with no paved shoulder and under different traffic volumes. A
CMF greater than 1.0 would indicate that more crashes were expected on roads without shoulders
whne compared to a standard 6-foot (1,8m) shoulder. The crash modification factors for absence of
shoulders concerned the following group of crashes: single vehicle run of road accidents, multiple
vehicle same direction sideswipe accidents, and multiple-vehicle opposite direction accidents.

Abdel-Rahim & Sonnen (2012) examined the relationship between crash rates and shoulder width
and lane width for two-lane rural state highways in Idaho. Crash modification factors (CMFs) for
shoulder width and lane width were developed using Idaho crash data covering the period from 1993
to 2010. Generalised linear negative binomial models were used to develop prediction models for
assessing the safety impacts of using different lane width and shoulder width values. Models were
developed for all crashes, single-vehicle crashes and multiple-vehicle crashes.Models for specific
crash types such as run-off-road (ROR), opposite direction (OD), single vehicle, and/or sideswipe
crashes were not developed due to the limited number of crashes and the small sample size
available. The model coefficients were estimated using the maximum-likelihood method.

A total of 127 roadways segments from 48 different highways in Idaho with lengths ranging from 5
to 8 miles (8,0 – 12,8km ) were selected for the analysis. The total length of the roadway segments

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included in this study is 923 miles (1477km) of rural two-lane two-way state highways. A total of
7,977 crashes occurred on these segments covering the years from 1993 through 2010. GLMs were
used in the development of the prediction models in this study. The Generalised Modeling
procedure (GENMOD) in SAS statistical software was used to develop the prediction models. The
model coefficients were estimated using the maximum-likelihood method. In addition to the
general analyses, crash modification factors were also separately calculated for low volume 2 lane
rural highways. Low-volume highways were defined as highways with an Average Annual Daily
Traffic (AADT) of less than 400 vehicles per day.

Hallmark et. al. (2013) evaluated the effectiveness of paved shoulders in reducing crashes in Iowa.
Data, such as shoulder type and width, pavement type, presence of rumble strips, and lane width,
were collected for non-interstate rural roadways where paved shoulders had been installed. Data on
220 road segments were collected, amongst which 170 2-lane and 54 4-lane sections.

The researchers used a negative binomial-Lindley (NB-L) generalised linear model (GLM). This
model was specically chosen to overcome the well-known problematic distribution of crash data,
namely thatcrash data sets often contain a large amount of zeros and a long or heavy tail (which
creates highly dispersed data). For such datasets, the number of zero crash sites is so large that
traditional distributions and regression models, such as the Poisson and Poisson-gamma or negative
binomial (NB) models cannot be used efficiently. To overcome this problem, the NB-Lindley (NB-L)
distribution has been introduced for analysing count data that are characterized by excess zeros.
According to Lord & Geedipally (2011) this new distribution can provide a better statistical fit than
the traditional Negative Binomial for datasets that contain a large amount of zeros. Since this
distribution is also influenced by the length of the tail, these authors suggest to evaluate both the
NB and NB–L distributions and select the one that provides the best goodness-of-fit statistic.

The model included the following road characteristics variables: Paved vs. unpaved shoulder, speed
limit, median type, season, length of segment, presence or absence of rumble strips, total width of
right shoulder, total width of right paved shoulder, total width of unpaved shoulder, number of
lanes.

The one evaluation study with mixed safety results was perfomed by Bamzai et al. (2011). These
researchers used an Empirical Bayesian (EB) approach to perform before-after comparison of
vehicle crashes on a number of rural and urban Interstate, multilane, and two-lane highway
segments involving pavement resurfacing treatments (with and without shoulder paving). Data on
Illinois state-maintained highways for the period 2000-2006 were used.

Table 2 summarises the main features of coded studies (sample, method, outcome indicator).

Table 2 Description of coded studies

Author, Sample and study Method of analysis Outcome indicator

Year design

Zegeer & Analysis of data for nearly 8 050 Accident prediction model using Analysed crash group included run-off-road
Council km (5,000 miles) of two-lane lognormal regression (fixed object, roll-over, and other run-off-road
1995 highway from seven states. crashes), head-on, and oppo-site- and same
direc-tion sideswipe crashes.

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Harwood Data from 619 rural two- lane
2000 highway segments in Minnesota
and 712 road-way segments in
Wash-ington. The segments
included approx. 1,130 km (700 mi)
roadways in Minnesota and 850 km
(530 mi) in Washington.
Negative binomial regres-sion analysis
on 5 years of accident data (1985-1989)
for each roadway segment in
Minnesota and 3 years of accident data
(1993-1995) for each roadway segment
in Washington.
Analysed group of crashes included: single
vehicle run of road crashes, mul-tiple vehicle
same direction sideswipe crashes, and ultiple-
vehicle opposite direction crashes.

Bamzai Before-after comparison of vehicle
2011 crashes on a number of rural and
urban Interstate, multilane, and
two-lane highway seg-ments
involving pavement resurfacing
treatments (with and without
shoulder paving).
Data on Illinois state-maintained
highways for the period 2000-2006
were used. Empirical Bayesian (EB)
approach in combination with cross-
sectional analysis.
Separate estimates for shoulder-related fatal
crashes, shoulder-related injury crashes and
shoulder-related property damage only
crashes

Abdel- A total of 127 roadways segments
Rahim from 48 high-ways in Idaho with
2012 lengths 5 to 8 miles were selected
for analysis. The total length of the
roadway segments included was
923 miles of rural two-lane two-
way state highways. A total of
7,977 crashes occurred on these
seg-ments from 1993 through
2010.
A generalized modeling procedure Separate estimates for all crashes, single
(GENMOD/SAS) was used to develop vehicle crashes, and multiple-vehicle crashes.
the prediction models (with maxi-
mum-likelihood estimation of model
coef-ficients). Crash modification
factors were separately calculated for
low volume 2 lane rural highways ( de-
fined as high-ways with an Average An-
nual Daily Traf-fic < 400 vehicles per
day).

Hallmark Data on 220 road segments in Iowa
2013 were collected, amongst which 170
2-lane and 54 4-lane sections.
A negative binomial-Lindley (NB-L) Total crashes
generalized linear model (GLM) was
used in-cluding: Paved vs. unpaved
shoulder, Speed limit, Median type,
season, length of seg-ment, presence/
ab-sence rumble strips, right shoul-der
width, right paved shoulder width,
unpaved shoulder width, nr. lanes.

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3 Supporting document

3.1 METHODOLOGY
3.1.1 Literature Search strategy
The literature on shoulders and road safety was searched for in the international databases Scopus
and TRID on 27 March 2016. Scopus is the largest international peer-reviewed database indexing
scientific journals, books and conference proceedings from more than 5,000 publishers. TRID is an
integrated database that combines the records from TRB’s Transportation Research Information
Services (TRIS) Database and the OECD’s Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport
Research Documentation (ITRD) Database. TRID provides access to more than one million records
of transportation research worldwide.

For Scopus the following query was used to select papers about road safety (Table 1): ((road and
casualt*) or (road and injur*) or (road and accident*) or (road and crash*) or (traffic and injur*) or
(traffic and casualt*) or (traffic and accident*) or (traffic and crash*)). For TRID the following query
was used: (collision* or crash* or accident* or injur* or casualt*) AND (traffic or road). Both for
Scopus and TRID all search results were filtered on English language only.

The aforementioned queries were combined with a query to select papers relating to the risk factor
absence of shoulder (Table 1): ( "hard shoulder" OR "soft shoulder" OR "hard strip" OR "paved
shoulder" OR "unpaved shoulder" OR "no shoulder" OR "missing shoulder" or “absent shoulder”
or “absence of shoulder” or “shoulder is missing” or “shoulder is absent” or “absence of
shoulder”) AND NOT TITLE-ABS-EY ( fracture OR trauma OR tissue OR disorder* OR surgery ) ).

These queries were combined in Scopus and TRID to search for literature about the risk factor
absence of shoulders. Searches were done for Worldwide and Europe. To distinguish literature from
Europe and Worldwide, the results were loaded into Mendeley, where the following query was used
to identify literature from Europe: (Italy or Ireland or Hungary or Greece or Germany or France or
Finland or Estonia or Denmark or Czech or Cyprus or Croatia or Bulgaria or Belgium or Austria or
Scotland or England or Britain or United Kingdom or Sweden or Spain or Slovenia or Slovakia or
Romania or Portugal or Poland or Netherlands or Malta or Luxembourg or Lithuania or Latvia).

Table 3: Used search terms and logical operators

Search terms/logical operators/combined queries

1 Scopus: ((road and casualt*) or (road and injur*) or (road and accident*) or (road and crash*) or (traffic and
injur*) or (traffic and casualt*) or (traffic and accident*) or (traffic and crash*))
TRID: (collision* or crash* or accident* or injur* or casualt*) AND (traffic or road).

2 ( "hard shoulder" OR "soft shoulder" OR "hard strip" OR "paved shoulder" OR "unpaved shoulder" OR "no
shoulder" OR "missing shoulder" or “absent shoulder” or “absence of shoulder” or “shoulder is missing” or
“shoulder is absent” or “absence of shoulder”) AND NOT TITLE-ABS-EY ( fracture OR trauma OR tissue OR
disorder* OR surgery ) ).

The number of hits for Europe and Worldwide and for Scopus and TRID are presented in Table 4.

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Table 4: Number of hits per search

search no. Region Database hits

#1 Europe Scopus 24

#2 Europe TRID 90

#3 Worldwide Scopus 64

#4 Worldwide TRID 218

Following the initial selection of relevant publications, a new selection of publications was made in
Mendeley, sorting the publications on year and source. Only publications from trusted sources and
most recent publications were selected with a maximum number of about 80. From this selection all
abstracts were reviewed. From reviewing the abstracts a total of 18 publications were selected as
the most promising. For 6 of these the full text version could not be retrieved and these were not
considered further. The remaining 12 publications were reviewed and 5 of these were judged
suitable for coding.

The final studies selected for the topic shoulders suggest that although this topic has been studied in
some depth, the study methodologies and subsequent results are diverse and mixed. No meta-
anlyses were found on this topic and the literature review reveals that the results of the selected five
studies do not lend themselves for inclusion in a meta-analysis.

3.2 LIST OF STUDIES

A list of studies considered (and of which the first 5 were selected for coding) are listed below:
3.2.1 Coded studies

1. Abdel-Rahim, A. & Sonnen, J. (2012). Potential safety effects of lane width and shoulder width on
two-lane rural state highways in Idaho. Idaho: National Institute for Advanced Transportation
Technology. Idaho, USA

2. Bamzai, R., Lee, Y., & Li, Z. (2011). Safety impacts of highways shoulder attributes in Illinois. Illinois:
Illinois Center for Transportation.

3. Hallmark, S.L., Qiu, Y., Pawlovitch, M. & McDonald, T.J. (2013). Assessing the safety impacts of
paved shoulders. Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, 5, 131-147.

4. Harwood, D.W., Council, F.M., Hauer,. E., Hughes, W.E., & Vogt, A. (2000). Prediction of the
expected safety performance of rural two-lane highways. Washington: Federal Highway
Administration, Midwest Research Institute.

5. Zegeer, C.V. & Council, F.M. (1995). Safety relationships associated with cross-sectional roadway
elements. Transportation Research Record, 1512, 29-36,

3.2.2 Not coded considered studies

6. Akgüngör ,A.P., Yildiz, O. (2007). Sensitivity analysis of an accident prediction model by the
fractional factorial method. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 39, 63-68.

SafetyCube | Synopsis on shoulders| WP5 13

Absence of paved shoulders

7. Aram, A., Nilam, M., Condo, T.A. & Ampang, J. (2010). Effective safety factors on horizontal
curves of two-lane highways. Journal of Applied Sciences, 10, 2814-2822. .

8. Elefteriadou, L., Torbic, D., El-Gindy, M., Stoffels, S. & Adolini, M (2001). Rumble strips for roads
with narrow or non-existent shoulders. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Transportation Institute.
USA, Pennsylvania

9. Hallmark, S.L., McDonald, T.J., Tian, Y., Andersen, D.J. (2009). Safety benefits of paved shoulders.
Iowa: Center for Transportation Research and Education. USA, Iowa

10. Lynam, D.A. & Kennedy, J.V. (2005). The travel of errant vehicles after leaving the carriageway.
PPR298. Crowthorne: TRL Limited UK

11. Shahrom, M., Saman, B.A., Umar, R., & Sohadi, B.R. (2004). The effectiveness of a continuous
paved shoulder to reduce motorcycle accidents at junctions. Paper presented at: Malaysian
Road Conference, 6th, 2004, Kuala Lumpur, alaysia. REAAA Journal, 2005, (Road
Engineering Association of Asia & Australasia). Malaysia

12. Summersgill, I., Kenedy, J.V., Sharples, J.M., & Frew, M.J. (2004). Safety on hard shoulders on
dual two-lane and three-lane motorways. PPR017. UK, Crowthorne: TRL Limited. UK

3.2.3 References on general background

iRap (2013). Road Attribute Risk Factors: Paved Shoulder Width. Factsheet, iRap, May 2013.UK,
Hampshire: iRap.

EuroRAP (2009). Star Rating Roads For Safety, The EuroRAP Methodology. EuroRAP505.04_v2
090911. EuroRAP AISBL.

FEMA (2005). The Road to Success – Improving Motorcyclists’ Safety by Improving Crash Barriers.
Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations

Hakkert, A.S, Gitelman, V. and Vis, M.A. (Eds.) (2007) Road Safety Performance Indicators: Theory.
Deliverable D3.6 of the EU FP6 project SafetyNet.

Labi, S. (2006). Effects of geometric characteristics of rural two-lane roads on safety. Report No.
FHWA/IN/JTRP-2005/2. Indiana, West Lafayette: Purdue University.

Lord, D. & Geedipally,S.R. (2011). The negative binomial–Lindley distribution as a tool for analyzing
crash data characterized by a large amount of zeros. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43,
1738-1742.

Ogden, K.W. (1996). The effects of paved shoulders on accidents on rural highways. Accident.
Analysis and Prevention, 29, 353-362.

RISER (2006). D06: European Best Practice for Roadside Design: Guidelines for Roadside Infrastructure
on New and Existing Roads. RISER deliverable, February 2006. Gothenburg: Chalmers
University of Technology/RISER.

Stamatiadis, N., Pigman, J., Sacksteder, J., Ruff, W., & Lord, D. (2009). Impact of shoulder width and
median width on safety. NCHRP Repprt 633. Washington D.C.: Transportation Research
Board.

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