Impact of information on the number of traffic accidents on the outcome of the forecast

Abstract

Every year, more and more vehicles appear on the world's roads. This leads to increased traffic on the roads. Road accidents have become a rapidly growing threat. They cause loss of human life and economic assets. This is due to the rapid growth of the world's human population and the very rapid development of motorization. The main problem in forecasting and analyzing data on the number of traffic accidents is the small size of the dataset that can be used for analysis in this regard. And on the other hand, road accidents cause, globally, millions of deaths and injuries annually is their density in time and space. It is worth noting that the pandemic has reduced the number of traffic accidents. However, the value is still very high.
 The purpose of the article is to assess the impact of information on the number of traffic accidents on the outcome of the forecast. To this end, using historical statistical data, the forecast of the number of traffic accidents for the following years was determined, and how this variability of the input data affects the value of the average percentage error of the forecast was determined. Based on the study, it can be concluded that a smaller number of input data, historical data on the number of accidents, instead of 32 years, 7 years, makes the determination of the forecast of the number of accidents for subsequent years, is at a satisfactory level, the average absolute percentage error of MAPE less than 7%. The article concludes with the determination of the forecast for future years. It is worth noting that the prevailing pandemic distorts the results obtained.

Forecasting the Number of Road Accidents in Poland by Road Type

“…Selected time series models and exponential models were used to forecast the number of accidents. Forecasting of the number of road accidents using factors influencing this value and the use of other forecasting methods (e.g., neural networks, linear regression) can be found in the author's other work in this area [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]. In their study, the authors used the police's statics data, not taking into account other factors affecting the occurrence of a traffic accident.…”