Factors Affecting Traffic Accidents Density on Selected Multilane Rural Highways

Abstract

Estimations of average crash density as a function of traffic elements and characteristics can be used for making good decisions relating to planning, designing, operating, and maintaining roadway networks. This study describes the relationships between total, collision, turnover, and runover accident densities with factors such as hourly traffic flow and average spot speed on multilane rural highways in Iraq. The study is based on data collected from two sources: police stations and traffic surveys. Three highways are selected in Wassit governorate as a case study to cover the studied locations of the accidents. Three highways are selected in Wassit governorate as a case study to cover the studied locations of the accidents. The selection includes Kut–Suwera, Kut–ShekhSaad, and Kut–Hay multilane divided highways located in the south of Iraq. The preliminary presentation of the studied highways was performed using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Data collection was done to obtain crash numbers and types over five years with their locations, hourly traffic flow, and average spot speed and define roadway segments lengths of crash locations. The cumulative speed distribution curves introduce that the spot speed spectrum for each highway's whole traffic extends over a relatively wide range, indicating a maximum speed of 180 kph and a minimum speed of 30 kph. Multiple linear regression analysis is applied to the data using SPSS software to attain the relationships between the dependent variables and the independent variables to identify elements strongly correlated with crash densities. Four regression models are developed which verify good and strong statistical relationships between crash densities with the studied factors. The results show that traffic volume and driving speed have a significant impact on the crash densities. It means that there is a positive correlation between the single factors and crash occurrence. The higher volumes and the faster the driving speed, the more likely it is to crash. As the hourly traffic flow of automobile grows, the need for safe traffic facilities also extended. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091719 Full Text: PDF

Machine Learning-Driven Calibration of Traffic Models Based on a Real-Time Video Analysis

“…When examining traffic flow on a specific section of the road, several overarching factors come into play. These include the overall road infrastructure both within and outside the section being studied [88][89][90], as well as temporary factors that can be cyclic, like changes in time of day and seasons [35,91,92], or random, such as variations in weather conditions [93].…”

“…These global and temporal factors also fluctuate and influence traffic flow characteristics to different extents, which can make simulation modeling quite complex [35,92]. To simplify this complexity, a limited set of traffic flow parameters is required to develop SMTF and assess the dynamics of each parameter.…”

Machine Learning-Driven Calibration of Traffic Models based on a Real-time Video Analysis

“…When examining traffic flow on a specific section of the road, several overarching factors come into play. These include the overall road infrastructure both within and outside the section being studied [60][61][62], as well as temporary factors that can be cyclic, like changes in time of day and seasons [23,63,64], or random, such as variations in weather conditions [65].…”

“…These global and temporal factors also fluctuate and influence traffic flow characteristics to different extents, which can make simulation modeling quite complex [23,64]. To simplify this complexity, a limited set of traffic flow parameters is required to develop SMTF and assess the dynamics of each parameter.…”

Risk Assessment of the main transport corridor in Iraq

“…In addition, several researches have been conducted to study the road safety issue in Iraq and consider the various factors. Al-Dulemi [10] found that the lane marking has significant effect on the road safety level of rural road in Iraq while Jrew et al [11] found that road length, lane width, number of lanes, traffic density, and number of speed calming, number of pedestrian bridges and crosswalks, and the availability of median have higher impact in road network in Erbil city. Aldoski et al [12] focused more in his research on surface and addressed its significant effect on the road risk level while Diah et al [13] and Albayati and Lateif [14] highlighted the impact of road functional classification and the lighting in increasing the road accidents.…”