Crash prediction model for two-lane rural highways in the Ashanti region of Ghana

Crash Prediction Models (CPMs) have been used elsewhere as a useful tool by road Engineers and Planners. There is however no study on the prediction of road traffic crashes on rural highways in Ghana. The main objective of the study was to develop a prediction model for road traffic crashes occurring on the rural sections of the highways in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The model was developed for all injury crashes occurring on selected rural highways in the Region over the three (3) year period 2005–2007. Data was collected from 76 rural highway sections and each section varied between 0.8 km and 6.7 km. Data collected for each section comprised injury crash data, traffic flow and speed data, and roadway characteristics and road geometry data. The Generalised Linear Model (GLM) with Negative Binomial (NB) error structure was used to estimate the model parameters. Two types of models, the ‘core’ model which included key exposure variables only and the ‘full’ model which included a wider range of variables were developed. The results show that traffic flow, highway segment length, junction density, terrain type and presence of a village settlement within road segments were found to be statistically significant explanatory variables (p < 0.05) for crash involvement. Adding one junction to a 1 km section of road segment was found to increase injury crashes by 32.0% and sections which had a village settlement within them were found to increase injury crashes by 60.3% compared with segments with no settlements. The model explained 61.2% of the systematic variation in the data. Road and Traffic Engineers and Planners can apply the crash prediction model as a tool in safety improvement works and in the design of safer roads. It is recommended that to improve safety, highways should be designed to by-pass village settlements and that the number of junctions on a highway should be limited to carefully designed ones.     

Using a surrogate safety approach to prioritize hazardous segments in a rural highway in a developing country

Road safety is a global concern particularly in developing countries where some road sections are disproportionately more vulnerable in terms of the frequency and severity of crashes. Other than using historical crash data based reactive approaches, those sections need to be identified proactively, so that mitigation measures can be applied. Moreover, those approaches are sometimes questioned mainly due to data reliability issues in developing countries. The study reported here is aimed at highlighting the applicability of traffic conflict techniques as surrogate safety measures to identify those sections of a rural highway in a developing country, which are most likely at risk. An adapted framework is demonstrated to identify traffic conflicts using combined surrogate indicators acknowledging the limited resources and facilities in developing countries. A new model is put forwarded using a count data modelling approach. Both fixed and random parameters model derivatives have been explored as an alternative methodological approach to relate the factors affecting the number and probability of conflicts. The partial effects of individual independent variables were estimated to gain a better insight of their impact. The results show that the model can predict high risk segments in terms of probability of conflicts as well as safety risk, as well as prioritize road sections according to the likelihood of their safety level. The model provides a less expensive alternative to the collection of historical crash data in order to identify hazardous road locations or black spots on two-lane highways in developing countries.¹     

What affects pedestrian crossing difficulty at urban intersections in a developing country?

In developing countries, road traffic crashes involving pedestrians have become a foremost concern. At present, road safety assessment plans and selection of interventions are primarily restricted to traditional approaches that depend on the investigations of historical crash data. However, in developing countries such as India, the availability, consistency, and accuracy of crash data are major concerns. In contrast, proactive approaches such as studying road users' risk perception have emerged as a substitute method of examining potential risk factors. An individual's risk perception offers vital information on probable crash risk, which may be beneficial in detecting high-risk locations and major causes of crashes. Since the pedestrian fatality risk is not uniform across the urban road network level, it may be expected that pedestrians' perceived risk measured in terms of “crossing difficulty” would also vary across the sites. In this perspective, the present paper establishes a mathematical association between the pedestrians' perceived “crossing difficulty” and actual crashes. The model outcome confirms that pedestrians' perceived crossing difficulty is a good surrogate of fatal pedestrian crashes at the intersection level in Kolkata City, India. Subsequently, to examine the impact of traffic exposures, road infrastructure, land use, spatial factors, and pedestrian-level attributes on pedestrians' “crossing difficulty”; a set of Ordered Logit models are developed. The model outcomes show that high vehicle and pedestrian volume, vehicular speed, absence of designated bus stop, the presence of inaccessible pedestrian crosswalk, on-street parking, lack of signalized control (for both vehicle and pedestrian), inadequate sight distance, land use pattern, slum population, pedestrian-vehicular post encroachment time, waiting time before crossing, road width, and absence of police enforcement at an intersection significantly and positively increase pedestrian's crossing difficulty at urban intersections. To end, the model findings are advantageously utilized to develop a set of countermeasures across 3E's of road safety.     

Using machine leaning techniques for evaluation of motorcycle injury severity

There is a growing interest in the application of the machine learning techniques in predicting the motorcycle crash severity. This is partly due to a progress in autonomous vehicles technology, and machine learning technique, which as a main component of autonomous vehicle could be implemented for traffic safety enhancement. Wyoming's motorcycle crash fatalities constitute a concern since the count of riders being killed in motorcycle crashes in 2014 was 11% of the total road fatalities in the state. The first step of crash reduction could be achieved through identification of contributory factors to crashes. This could be accomplished by using a right model with high accuracy in predicting crashes. Thus, this study adopted random forest, support vector machine, multivariate adaptive regression splines and binary logistic regression techniques to predict the injury severity outcomes of motorcycle crashes. Even though researchers applied all the aforementioned techniques to model motorcycle injury severities, a comparative analysis to assess the predictive power of such modeling frameworks is limited. Hence, this study contributes to the road safety literature by comparing the performance of the discussed techniques. In this study, Wyoming's motorcycle crash injury severities are modeled as functions of the characteristics that give rise to crashes. Before conducting any analyses, feature reduction was used to identify a best number of predictors to be included in the model. Also to have an unbiased estimation of the performance of different machine learning techniques, 5-fold cross-validation was used for model performance evaluation. Two measure, Area under the curve (AUC), and confusion matrix were used to compare different models' performance. The machine learning results indicate that random forest model outperformed the other models with the least misclassification and higher AUC. It was also revealed that a dichotomous response variable, with fatality and incapacitation injury in one category, along with all other categories in another group would result in a lower misclassification rate than a polychotomous response variable. This might result from the nature of motorcycle crashes, lacking a protection compared with passenger cars, preventing machine learning technique to get trained properly. Moreover, the most important variables identified by the random forest model are those related to the operating speed, resentful other party, traffic volume, truck traffic volume, riding under the influence, horizontal curvature, wide roadway with more than two lanes and rider's age.     

Modeling lane-change-related crashes with lane-specific real-time traffic and weather data

This study investigates the relationship between lane-change-related crashes and lane-specific, real-time traffic factors. It is anticipated that the real-time traffic data for the two lanes—the vehicle's lane (subject lane) and the lane to which that a vehicle intends to change (target lane)—are more closely related to lane-change-related crashes, as opposed to congregated traffic data for all lanes. Lane-change-related crash data were obtained from a 62-mile long freeway in Southeast Wisconsin in 2012 and 2013. One-minute traffic data from the 5- to 10-minute interval prior to the crashes were extracted from an immediately upstream detector station and two immediately downstream stations from the crash location. Weather information was collected from a major historical weather database. A matched case-control logistic regression was used for analysis. Results show that the following factors significantly affect the probability of a lane-change-related crash: average flow into the target lane at the first downstream station, the flow ratio at the second downstream station, and snow conditions. Additionally, the average speed in the target lane at the first downstream station contributes to the occurrence of lane-change crashes during snowy conditions. According to the model, the probability of a lane-change-related crash under real-time traffic conditions can aid in flagging potential crash-prone conditions. The identified contributing factors can help traffic operators select traffic control and management countermeasures to proactively mitigate lane-change-related crashes.     

连续数据环境下的道路交通事故风险预测模型

针对现有研究多基于病例对照的欠采样方法,即每起事故从连续交通流数据中按一定比例抽取对照的非事故数据构建模型,而该类模型在连续数据环境中的预测精度存在缺陷的状况,对城市交通连续观测并动态调控的技术环境（简称连续数据环境）开展道路交通事故风险预测模型构建研究。首先提出基于全样本交通流数据,结合“调整事故分类阈值”的方法解决事故风险预测研究中的非平衡数据分类问题;而后采用上海市城市快速路2014年5,6月的线圈检测交通流数据及历史事故数据开展实证研究,以受试者工作特征曲线下面积为评价指标,对比基于全样本和抽样样本构建的常用事故风险预测模型（逻辑回归、随机森林）的整体预测能力;以灵敏度和特异度的几何均数为评价指标,对比3种分类阈值计算方式（约登指数法、事故占比法和交叉点法）对事故/非事故综合预测精度的影响。结果表明：在连续数据环境下,采用全样本数据建模能使模型整体预测能力提高13.06%;基于约登指数法进行分类阈值计算可使模型的事故/非事故综合预测精度最佳。     

道路因素对典型较严重道路交通事故严重性的影响分析

基于道路交通事故数据探究事故影响因素对于认识事故的影响因素、提高交通安全水平具有重要意义。利用近年来国内典型较严重道路交通事故数据,应用泊松模型和负二项模型,以区分事故形态的方式建立追尾事故、侧碰事故及撞行人事故的事故死亡率的道路影响因素分析模型。这些模型以三类事故中涉及人员的死亡数为因变量,以一系列道路因素为自变量,将事故涉及人数作为偏移变量。模型的具体形式以过离散系数及赤池信息量准则(AIC)为依据进行选择。结果显示,追尾事故的死亡率与道路等级、路侧防护设施显著相关;侧碰事故则与天气、路表情况、路口路段位置、坡度以及道路结构有关;撞行人事故与路表情况、道路等级、车道数、平曲线半径有关。本文拓展了事故严重性研究的深度,其研究成果对于更好地利用重特大事故的深入调查数据有现实意义,也可为事故分析及道路设计等提供借鉴。      

双车道高速公路追尾事故实时预测模型

现有的高速公路实时事故预测模型对高速公路信息化采集设备的布设密度和采集的数据粒度要求很高,在低信息化的高速公路管理工作上难以得到应用.结合国内高速公路信息化现状,使用单个检测器所采集的数据,对高速公路追尾事故实时风险进行研究.基于江苏省扬州市启扬高速公路上布设的超声波交通流检测器所采集的交通流数据,采用配对案例对照方法和二元逻辑回归,建立了双车道高速公路追尾事故实时预测模型.对事故前5~20 min的交通流数据分别构建流量时空矩阵、速度时空矩阵、平均车头间距时空矩阵,通过引入矩阵特征值简化建模过程并避免了指标间的相关性过高问题.模型总体精度85.7%,事故预测精度33.3%,误报率低于2%,相比已有模型总体预测精度较高,误报率较低,表明了该方法应用于追尾事故实时预测领域的可行性和有效性.      

基于负二项分布的高速公路交通事故影响因素分析

为分析高速公路交通事故的影响因素,构建基于负二项分布的事故分析模型,探究事故数与交通特性、公路线形及路面性能间关系.鉴于传统固定参数模型难以刻画各因素对事故风险影响的异质性,引入了随机参数建模方法.结果表明:相比于固定参数负二项模型,构建的随机参数负二项模型有更好的拟合优度,且能更合理地反映各因素对事故的作用效果;将随...     

Road characteristics and environment factors associated with motorcycle fatal crashes in Malaysia

This study aims to determine risk factors contributing to traffic crashes in 9,176 fatal cases involving motorcycle in Malaysia between 2010 and 2012. For this purpose, both multinomial and mixed models of motorcycle fatal crash outcome based on the number of vehicle involved are estimated. The corresponding model predicts the probability of three fatal crash outcomes: motorcycle single-vehicle fatal crash, motorcycle fatal crash involving another vehicle and motorcycle fatal crash involving two or more vehicles. Several road characteristic and environmental factors are considered including type of road in the hierarchy, location, road geometry, posted speed limit, road marking type, lighting, time of day and weather conditions during the fatal crash. The estimation results suggest that curve road sections, no road marking, smooth, rut and corrugation of road surface and wee hours, i.e. between 00.00 am to 6 am, increase the probability of motorcycle single-vehicle fatal crashes. As for the motorcycle fatal crashes involving multiple vehicles, factors such as expressway, primary and secondary roads, speed limit more than 70 km/h, roads with non-permissible marking, i.e. double lane line and daylight condition are found to cause an increase the probability of their occurrence. The estimation results also suggest that time of day (between 7 pm to 12 pm) has an increasing impact on the probability of motorcycle single-vehicle fatal crashes and motorcycle fatal crashes involving two or more vehicles. Whilst the multinomial logit model was found as more parsimonious, the mixed logit model is likely to capture the unobserved heterogeneity in fatal motorcycle crashes based on the number of vehicles involved due to the underreporting data with two random effect parameters including 70 km/h speed limit and double lane line road marking.     

Applying interpretable machine learning to classify tree and utility pole related crash injury types

In spite of enormous improvements in vehicle safety, roadway design, and operations, there is still an excessive amount of traffic crashes resulting in injuries and major productivity losses. Despite the many studies on factors of crash frequency and injury severity, there is still further research to be conducted. Tree and utility pole/other pole related (TUOP) crashes present approximately 12 to 15% of all roadway departure (RwD) fatal crashes in the U.S. The count of TUOP crashes comprise nearly 22% of all fatal crashes in Louisiana. From 2010 to 2016, there were 55,857 TUOP crashes reported in Louisiana. Individually examining each of these crash reports is not a realistic option to investigate crash factors. Therefore, this study employed text mining and interpretable machine learning (IML) techniques to analyze all TUOP crashes (with available crash narratives) that occurred in Louisiana from 2010 to 2016. This study has two major goals: 1) to develop a framework for applying machine learning models to classify injury levels from unstructured textual content, and 2) to apply an IML framework that provides probability measures of keywords and their association with the injury classification. The present study employed three machine learning algorithms in the classification of injury levels based on the crash narrative data. Of the used modeling techniques, the eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model shows better performance, with accuracy ranging from 0.70 to 24% for the training data and from 0.30% to 16% for the test data.     

在道路交通和城市化进程影响下对汽车销量的预测

本文研究了汽车销量在道路交通和城市化进程影响下的预测模型的建立,以历史数据为检测依据,判断所建模型的可行性,并对2011~2015年末汽车总销量进行了预测。其模型参数即道路交通和城市化进程对汽车销量的影响因素包括城镇人口数、城镇居民人均可支配收入、城市化率、城市年末实有道路长度、城市年末实有道路面积、公路里程。经精度检验,BP神经网络可用于预测城镇人口数、城镇居民人均可支配收入、城市化率、公路里程。二元线性回归可用于预测城市道路长度和城市道路面积。最后BP神经网络利用其在处理非线性系统方面的优越性,实现在各参数影响输入下对汽车总销量输出的任意非线性映射且具有较高的预测精度。     

基于GIS分析的深圳市道路交通事故空间分布特征研究

掌握城市道路交通事故空间分布特征是城市道路交通安全管理的重要基础。基于深圳市2014~2016年的道路交通事故数据,首先应用地理编码方法对原始事故记录进行空间定位,形成事故的空间分布。其次针对考虑/不考虑路网密度的2种情况,应用密度分析方法对道路交通事故多发的区域和事故严重程度较高的区域进行鉴别,比较2种情况下区域分布的差异并分析造成这种差异的可能原因。最后利用异常点分析和热点分析2种空间聚类分析模型对事故严重程度较高的区域进行进一步鉴别,并对密度分析和聚类分析2种方法得到的结果进行了比较。密度分析结果表明：就事故频度而言,深圳市中心城区单位面积上的交通事故频度较高,而郊区单位长度道路上的交通事故分布更为密集;就事故严重程度而言,郊区的交通事故平均严重程度高于市中心区域。造成上述差异的原因可能与郊区道路限速较高等因素有关。聚类分析结果与密度分析结果相近,在郊区形成了高严重程度的事故聚类,而在中心城区形成了低严重程度的事故聚类,说明郊区的交通事故严重程度总体高于市中心区域。从2种方法的比较来看,密度分析简单易行,有助于交通管理部门对城市交通事故空间分布特征直观快速的了解;聚类分析可精确到事故点,为精细化的交通安全管理工作提供支撑。研究结果表明基于密度分析和聚类分析的研究方法对于确定道路交通事故空间分布特征有良好的作用。     

Measure of productivity loss due to road traffic accidents in Thailand

As one of the top countries with the highest casualties per capita in road traffic accidents, Thailand needs to raise public awareness about the economic loss from road traffic crashes. This paper calculates the value of productivity loss due to road traffic accidents in Thailand in 2017. Extensive data collection and analyses enable to compute income losses over time in case of fatalities, permanent disabilities as well as major and minor injuries. The results reveal that, at the end of 2017, the total amount of productivity loss caused by road traffic accidents alone was approximately 121 billion Baht (45 billions for fatalities, 7 for disabilities, 67.5 for serious injuries and 1.5 for slight injuries), or close to 0.8% of the country's GDP, which is very significant. At-risk age groups are determined in each case and we see that the 16–25 age group is bearing the highest burden in all types of accidents. Future policies can then be targeted to types of casualties and to a specific public.     

Evaluation of risk factors for road accidents under mixed traffic: Case study on Indian highways

This paper presents an evaluation of risk factors for highway crashes under mixed traffic conditions. The basis of selecting study sites was abutting land use, roadway, and traffic characteristics. Accordingly, the study selected thirteen segments on the existing highway network in the state of West Bengal of India, covering a wide spectrum of such road attributes. A systematic investigation based on site-specific accident data to capture the highway sections' safety features revealed that the crash rate has steadily increased for years with traffic regardless of roadway category and conditions. A number of risk factors that affect road accidents were identified; they are mid-block access, pavement and shoulder conditions, vehicle involvement, time of day, and road configuration, i.e., two and multi-lane. The empirical observation indicates that the crash rate is relatively lower on multi-lane highways; however, the severity of any crash on such a road is relatively high. Notably, the crash frequencies on such roads are less during daylight hours due to the lane-based unidirectional traffic movement. This is quite the opposite during nighttime when drivers exhibit an inability to meet traffic contingencies, thereby increasing crash risk. The majority of crashes on two-lane highways are, on the other hand, due to unsafe driving manoeuvers. The study also observed that frequent mid-block accesses and poor shoulder conditions reduce scopes to rectify driving errors and increase crash risk as a consequence. The paper subsequently suggests proactive approaches to identify safety deficits at the time of planning and designing.     

基于T-S模糊故障树和贝叶斯网络的重特大交通事故成因分析

重特大交通事故是最严重的交通事故类型, 为了识别此类事故的主要致因, 融合T-S模糊故障树和贝叶斯网络对其进行深入分析。建立了以重特大交通事故为顶事件, 人、车、路、环境4个因素为中间事件, 24个子因素为基本事件的T-S模糊故障树, 将其转化为贝叶斯网络, 进而双向推理基本事件的重要度和后验概率, 确定主要致因。结果表明: 融合T-S模糊故障树与贝叶斯网络的方法通过正、反向推理提高了重特大交通事故成因分析结果的准确性和可靠性, 确定了操作不当、超速、防护设施不完善、弯坡组合、路面湿滑、未按规定行驶为重特大交通事故的6个主要致因, 并对这6个主要致因之间的组合关系进一步分析, 得到了操作不当和超速对于重特大交通事故更为关键。      

Factors affecting lane change crashes

This study aims to investigate the contributing factors affecting the occurrence of crashes while lane-changing maneuvers of drivers. Two different data sets were used from the same drivers' population. The first data set was collected from the traffic police crash reports and the second data set was collected through a questionnaire survey that was conducted among 429 drivers. Two different logistic regression models were developed by employing the two sets of the collected data. The results of the crash occurrence model showed that the drivers' factors (gender, nationality and years of experience in driving), location and surrounding condition factors (non-junction locations, light and road surface conditions) and roads feature (road type, number of lanes and speed limit value) are the significant variables that affected the occurrence of lane-change crashes. About 57.2% of the survey responders committed that different sources of distractions were the main reason for their sudden or unsafe lane change including 21.2% was due to mobile usage. The drivers' behavior model results showed that drivers who did sudden lane change are more likely to be involved in traffic crashes with 2.53 times than others. The drivers who look towards the side mirrors and who look out the windows before lane-change intention have less probability to be involved in crashes by 4.61 and 3.85 times than others, respectively. Another interesting finding is that drivers who reported that they received enough training about safe lane change maneuvering during issuing the driving licenses are less likely to be involved in crashes by 2.06 times than other drivers.     

考虑空间相关性的行人宏观安全研究

为了探究行人事故的发生机理,分析影响行人交通安全的显著因素,收集上海市中心城区263个交通分析小区（TAZ）的行人事故、道路、人口及土地利用数据,并开展行人宏观安全研究。考虑到TAZ之间存在的空间相关性,建立考虑空间相关性的贝叶斯负二项条件自回归模型,在条件自回归模型中对比分析了5种不同的空间权重矩阵,包括0~1邻接矩阵、边界长度矩阵、分析单元中心距离倒数矩阵、事故空间中心距离倒数矩阵这4种既有矩阵,以及首次引入的宏观安全建模中的分析单元中心距离多阶矩阵。结果表明：分析单元中心距离多阶矩阵的模型拟合效果和事故预测准确度均显著优于既有的4种空间权重矩阵,证明了在宏观安全建模过程中考虑研究对象交通特征（居民步行平均出行距离等）的必要性;人口数量、主干道长度、次干道长度、路网密度等因素均与行人事故呈现显著正相关,平均交叉口间距、三路交叉口比例等因素与行人事故呈显著负相关;相较于高等、低等土地利用强度,中等土地利用强度对行人事故的影响最大。     

Modeling two-way stop-controlled intersection crashes with zero-inflated models on Louisiana rural two-lane highways

Intersection safety continues to be a crucial issue throughout the United States. In 2016, 27% of the 37,461 traffic fatalities on U.S. roadways occurred at or near intersections. Nearly 70% of intersection-related fatalities occurred at unsignalized intersections. At such intersections, vehicles stopping or slowing to turn create speed differentials between vehicles traveling in the same direction. This is particularly problematic on two-lane highways. Research was performed to analyze safety performance for intersections on rural, two-lane roadways, with stop control on the minor roadway. Roadway, traffic, and crash data were collected from 4148 stop-controlled intersections of all 64 Parishes (counties) statewide in Louisiana, for the period of 2013 to 2017. Four count approaches, Poisson, Negative Binomial (NB), Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) and Zero-inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) were used to model the number of intersection crashes for different severity levels. The results indicate that ZIP models provide a better fit than all other models. In addition to traffic volume, larger curve radii of major and minor roads and wider lane widths of major roads led to significantly smaller crash occurrences. However, higher speed limits of major roads led to significantly greater crash occurrences. Four-leg stop-controlled intersections have 35% greater total crashes, 49% greater fatal and injury crashes, and 25% greater property damage only (PDO) crashes, relative to three-leg intersections.     

山区高速公路隧道路段与开放路段的事故影响因素分析

高速公路隧道构造特殊且通行环境复杂,因而通常事故多发。为探究高速公路隧道路段与开放路段事故影响因素和严重程度致因机理的差异,采集沪昆高速邵怀段2011—2016年期间1 537起事故为研究样本;以事故发生路段为响应变量构建逻辑回归模型,解释各种风险因素对事故发生路段倾向性的影响差异;分别针对隧道路段与开放路段建立模型研究事故伤害严重程度的影响因素。建立二元Logit回归模型分析事故的发生倾向性和2类路段的事故严重程度的影响因素;采用随机参数Logit模型以反映异质性条件对参数的影响。统计表明:与疲劳驾驶、未保持安全距离相关的事故发生在隧道路段的概率更高,其事故发生概率分别是开放路段的2.373和2.482倍;与隧道路段事故严重程度正相关的因素包括下坡（坡度2%以上）、夏季和超速行驶,其中下坡（坡度2%以上）段的严重事故发生的概率为上坡（坡度2%以上）的3.397倍,夏季的严重事故发生概率为秋季的3.951倍,超速行驶相关的严重事故发生概率为其他不当驾驶行为的4.242倍;与开放路段事故严重程度正相关的因素包括超速行驶和疲劳驾驶,其中超速行驶相关的严重事故概率是其他不当驾驶行为的2.713倍,疲劳驾驶相关的严重事故概率是其他不当驾驶行为的4.802倍。研究表明,山区高速公路隧道路段与开放路段的事故发生概率及其严重程度的影响因素存在一定的差异性,研究结论可为山区高速公路差异管理方案制定提供依据。