A hybrid method based on P and P′ control chart for identifying hotspots

Abstract

AbstractThe terms “hotspots,” “blackspot,” or “high‐risk” are normally used for an area on a road where the number of car accidents are far beyond the normal level and, more importantly, the causes of the incident always link to one or many specific reasons. Identifying these spots is helpful and may assist people in authority to implement corrective actions. To do the aforementioned, some decision‐support tools could be useful since they enable us to monitor the indicators that may lead to a car accident, same as the procedure engineers use to control production lines in factories. In this regard, control charts are utilized to identify blackspots. Although the method is low cost, and provides quick detection and statistical reliability level and, more importantly, uses online applications; however, it advised that the rate quality control method could be used on roads with the same geometry and traffic conditions. This research develops a hybrid method, based on accident type, for improving rate quality control method to overcome the shortcomings. Furthermore, the suggested framework considers crash severity and traffic volume that have not been taken into account in the rate quality control method yet. The case study evaluates how this framework is successful to identify blackspots, and based on the result in the real environment, it reveals that the proposed method could detect and identify the hotspots.