Abstract
Traffic injuries on motorways are a public health problem worldwide. Collisions on motorways represent a high injury rate in comparison to the entire national network. Furthermore, collisions that occur on the hard–shoulder are even more severe than those that happen on the main carriageway. The purpose of this paper is to explore motorway safety through the identification of patterns in the sequence of monthly hard–shoulder and main carriageway collisions separately over a long period of time (1993–2011) by using reported collision data from British motorways. In order to examine the trends of hard–shoulder and motorway collisions over the same period, a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is developed; this allows the inclusion of two time-series in the same model and the examination of the effect of one series on the other and vice-versa. Exogenous variables are also added in order to explore the long-term factors that might affect the occurrence of collisions. The factors considered are related to the infrastructure (e.g. length of motorways), socio-demographics (e.g. percentage of young drivers), traffic (e.g. percentage of vehicle-miles travelled by Heavy Goods Vehicles) and weather (e.g. precipitation). The results suggest different patterns in the sequences in terms of the lingering effects of preceding observations for the two time-series. In terms of the significance of exogenous variables, it is suggested that main carriageway collision frequency is affected by weather conditions and the presence of Heavy Goods Vehicles, while hard–shoulder collisions are decreased by the presence of Motorway Service Areas, which allow a safe exit off the motorway to stop and rest in case of fatigue.
Highlights
Background and scope of the studyRoad traffic injuries have been an important global public health problem, being the eighth leading cause of death and the number one cause among those aged 15–29 years according to the World Health Organisation (2013)
Data from Great Britain (GB) suggest that a hard–shoulder (HS) collision is five times more possible to be fatal in comparison to collisions occurring on the main traffic lanes, called the main carriageway (MC)
This paper focused on a major public health problem, that of motorway collisions
Summary
Background and scope of the studyRoad traffic injuries have been an important global public health problem, being the eighth leading cause of death and the number one cause among those aged 15–29 years according to the World Health Organisation (2013). Motorway collisions appear to have a much greater severity level than the average of the national road network collisions in GB. This is reflected by higher fatal injury rates on the motorway network. The lane is used by road maintenance vehicles and emergency vehicles (e.g. ambulances and police vehicles) (Highway Code, 2007). Sometimes those vehicles are obliged to remain on the hard–shoulder for a long period of time while the personnel are performing their tasks. Data from GB suggest that a hard–shoulder (HS) collision is five times more possible to be fatal in comparison to collisions occurring on the main traffic lanes, called the main carriageway (MC)
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