The objectives of this study are:
§ Design a data mapping approach to maximally recover AVC data from the reported AVC data set and the animal carcass removal data set;
§ Build a relational database that stores the recovered AVC data, highway geometric data, traffic data, and animal habitat data;
§ Develop a new modeling approach that can consider the occurrence mechanism of AVC for quantifying the relationships between AVC risk and roadway and/or environmental variables; and
§ Identify high AVC risk locations on the selected Washington State highways.

After Aivis Grislis left the University of Washington and went back to Latvia, Mr. Yunteng Lao joined the team as a main research assistant. Mr. Jonathan Corey and Mr. Yao-Jan Wu stay on team. We conduct a regular meeting once a week to discuss progress of this project.

Since TransNow decided to fund our AVC modeling proposal, which has certain amount of work overlapping with this project, the research team will be able to extend the analysis to more routes. The research team met Mr. Kelly McAllister and Ms. Rhonda Brooks on June 8, 2009 to discuss the impact of the TransNow funding on this project. We agreed to extend the completion date of this project to June 30, 2010, the expected ending date for the TransNow funding. However, we will produce a summary of findings of this project to WSDOT by the end of September so that the change of the ending date will not WSDOT practice in AVC mitigation.

The progress of this project is considered satisfactory. We are on track right now. Over the past six months, the research team has completed tasks 4 and 5 for the selected study routes. A fuzzy logic based data mapping algorithm has been developed and tested. We have also conducted two sruveys to collect inputs from WSDOT AVC experts. These inputs are important for us to verify the fuzzy logic data merging algorithm. We found that the algorithm agree with expert judgment for over 90% of the cases. We have also developed an AVC risk model that can be used to identify high AVC risk locations. We are currently working on task 6 and are revising the research plan to collaborate with the TransNow AVC research.

In the coming six months, we will summarize findings to date and submit the summary to WSDOT. Meanwhile, we will revise the research scope to include more routes for this study and revise the research schedule to match the TransNow AVC research. We believe that the research report will be more substantial and fruitful with the extended scope and time.

Two journal papers will be produced during this period. At least one of them will be submitted to the annual meeting of Transportation Research Board (TRB). Also, we will use the fuzzy logic data mapping approach to combine reported AVC data and carcass removal data. The new data set will be used to test different accident models. We will also explore the applicability of the bivariate Poisson model for AVC risking modeling.

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