Towards Sustainable Road Safety in Saudi Arabia: Exploring Traffic Accident Causes Associated with Driving Behavior Using a Bayesian Belief Network

Muhammad Muhitur Rahman, Md Kamrul Islam, Ammar Al-Shayeb and Md Arifuzzaman
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Muhammad Muhitur Rahman: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Md Kamrul Islam: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Ammar Al-Shayeb: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Md Arifuzzaman: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-22

Abstract: Understanding the causes and effects of road accidents is critical for developing road and action plans in a country. The causation hypothesis elucidates how accidents occur and may be applied to accident analysis to more precisely anticipate, prevent, and manage road safety programs. Driving behavior is a critical factor to consider when determining the causes of traffic accidents. Inappropriate driving behaviors are a set of acts taken on the roadway that can result in aberrant conditions that may result in road accidents. In this study, using Al-Ahsa city in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province as a case study, a Bayesian belief network (BBN) model was established by incorporating an expectation–maximization algorithm. The model examines the relationships between indicator variables with a special focus on driving behavior to measure the uncertainty associated with accident outcomes. The BBN was devised to analyze intentional and unintentional driving behaviors that cause different types of accidents and accident severities. The results showed when considering speeding alone, there is a 26% likelihood that collision will occur; this is a 63% increase over the initial estimate. When brake failure was considered in addition to speeding, the likelihood of a collision jumps from 26% to 33%, more than doubling the chance of a collision when compared to the initial value. These findings demonstrated that the BBN model was capable of efficiently investigating the complex linkages between driver behavior and the accident causes that are inherent in road accidents.

Keywords: sustainable road safety; driver behavior; multicriteria decision making; Bayesian belief network; causality; sustainable road condition; road safety modeling; Al-Ahsa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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