Forecasting the number of road accidents in Poland by day of the week and the impact of pandemics and pandemic-induced changes

Abstract

The COVID19 pandemic has significantly affected the performance of the transport sector and its overall intensity. Reduced mobility has a large impact on the number of road accidents. The aim of this study is to forecast the number of road accidents in Poland and to assess the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on the variation in road crashes. For this purpose, day-wise historical crash data from 2011 onwards have been collected and analysed. Based on real historical field data, the future has been forecasted for both pandemic and nonpandemic variants. Forecasting of the number of accidents has been carried out using selected time series models and exponential models. Based on obtained data, it can be stated that pandemic resulted in a decrease in number of road accidents in Poland with ranges of reduction varying from 11% to 30% based on different days of week. Most visible decrease is observed on 3 days viz. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Further, the projections show that in view of the current situation one may expect further decrease in the number of road accidents in Poland.