The Effect of Pavement Damage on Number of Accidents and on Traffic Congestion on Roads Using Multivariate Analysis of Variance

Abstract

Traffic road accidents are a concern for every elected government since it affects the socio and economic well-being of a country. Kenya has experienced high number of road accidents claiming more than three thousands lives every year. The cause of traffic road accidents is usually blamed on the drivers, pedestrians, lack of adequate enforcement of traffic laws, quality of roads among other reasons. The government has tried to address this road carnage by coming up with road safety measures and improvement of road infrastructure. In this paper Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) has been used to study the effect of pavement damage on number of accidents and on time spent on roads. By considering two dependent variables (the number of accidents and traffic congestion on roads) and two factors (damage on pavement and type of vehicle), a 2×3 design with 4 replications, for a total of 24 observation vectors has been developed. Significance tests involving the individual dependent variables have been carried out. Using the sampled data from Nairobi, it has been determined that type of vehicle has a significant effect on the number of accidents and traffic congestion on roads. It is also determined that damage of pavements does not have significant effect on the number of accidents and traffic congestion on roads.