Investigating the Impacts of Real-Time Weather Conditions on Freeway Crash Severity: A Bayesian Spatial Analysis

Qiang Zeng, Wei Hao, Jaeyoung Lee and Feng Chen
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Qiang Zeng: School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China
Wei Hao: School of Traffic and Transportation, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha 410114, China
Jaeyoung Lee: School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Feng Chen: Key Laboratory of Road & Traffic Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: This study presents an empirical investigation of the impacts of real-time weather conditions on the freeway crash severity. A Bayesian spatial generalized ordered logit model was developed for modeling the crash severity using the hourly wind speed, air temperature, precipitation, visibility, and humidity, as well as other observed factors. A total of 1424 crash records from Kaiyang Freeway, China in 2014 and 2015 were collected for the investigation. The proposed model can simultaneously accommodate the ordered nature in severity levels and spatial correlation across adjacent crashes. Its strength is demonstrated by the existence of significant spatial correlation and its better model fit and more reasonable estimation results than the counterparts of a generalized ordered logit model. The estimation results show that an increase in the precipitation is associated with decreases in the probabilities of light and severe crashes, and an increase in the probability of medium crashes. Additionally, driver type, vehicle type, vehicle registered province, crash time, crash type, response time of emergency medical service, and horizontal curvature and vertical grade of the crash location, were also found to have significant effects on the crash severity. To alleviate the severity levels of crashes on rainy days, some engineering countermeasures are suggested, in addition to the implemented strategies.

Keywords: crash severity; weather condition; generalized ordered logit model; spatial correlation; conditional autoregressive prior; Bayesian inference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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