Injury Severity of Motorcycle Riders Involved in Traffic Crashes in Hunan, China: A Mixed Ordered Logit Approach

Fangrong Chang, Maosheng Li, Pengpeng Xu, Hanchu Zhou, Md. Mazharul Haque and Helai Huang
Additional contact information
Fangrong Chang: School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Maosheng Li: School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Pengpeng Xu: Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong 999077, China
Hanchu Zhou: School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Md. Mazharul Haque: Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety—Queensland (CARRS-Q), Civil Engineering and the Built Environment, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4059, Australia
Helai Huang: School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: Issues related to motorcycle safety in China have not received enough research attention. As such, the causal relationship between injury outcomes of motorcycle crashes and potential risk factors remains unknown. This study intended to investigate the injury risk of motorcyclists involved in road traffic crashes in China. To account for the ordinal nature of response outcomes and unobserved heterogeneity, a mixed ordered logit model was employed. Given that the crash occurrence process is different between intersections and non-intersections, separate models were developed for these locations to independently estimate the impacts of various contributing factors on motorcycle riders’ injury severity. The analysis was based on the police-reported crash dataset obtained from the Traffic Administration Bureau of Hunan Provincial Public Security Ministry. Factors associated with a substantially higher probability of fatalities and severe injuries included motorcycle riders older than 60 years, the absence of helmets, motorcycle riders identified to be equal duty, and when a motorcycle collided with a heavy vehicle during the night time without lighting. Crashes occurred along county roads with curve and slope alignment or at regions with higher GDP were associated with an elevated risk of fatality of motorcycle riders, while unsignalized intersections were related to less severe injuries. Findings of this study are beneficial in forming several targeted countermeasures for motorcycle safety in China, including designing roads with appropriate road delineation and street lighting, strict enforcement for speeding and red light violations, promoting helmet usage, and improving the conspicuity of motorcyclists.

Keywords: injury severity; motorcyclist; unobserved heterogeneity; mixed ordered logit; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/7/714/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/7/714/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:7:p:714-:d:73968

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().