Crash Frequency Models Research Articles

Integrating macro and micro level crash frequency models considering spatial heterogeneity and random effects

Safety literature has traditionally developed independent model systems for macroscopic and microscopic level analysis. The current research effort contributes to the literature on crash frequency by building a bridge between these two divergent streams of crash frequency research. The study proposes an integrated micro–macro level model for crash frequency estimation. Specifically, the study develops an integrated model system that allows for the influence of independent variables at the microscopic level to be incorporated within the macroscopic propensity estimation. The empirical analysis is based on the data drawn from 300 traffic analysis zones, 1818 roadway segments, and 4184 intersections from the City of Orlando, Florida for the years 2018 and 2019. The study considers a host of exogenous variables including roadway and traffic factors, land-use, built environment, and sociodemographic characteristics for the model estimation. The proposed model system can also accommodate for hierarchical correlations such as correlation between all segments or intersections in a zone. The study findings highlight the presence of common spatial unobserved factors influencing crash frequency across segment level and intersection level as well as presence of significant parameter variability across both micro and macro level in the crash frequency. The empirical analysis is further augmented by employing several goodness of fit and predictive measures. The results clearly demonstrate the improved performance offered by the proposed integrated micro–macro model relative to the non-integrated macro model. The overall model fit measures and interpretations encourage the application of the proposed model for crash frequency analysis.

Macro-level literature analysis on pedestrian safety: Bibliometric overview, conceptual frames, and trends

Due to the high volume of documents in the pedestrian safety field, the current study conducts a systematic bibliometric analysis on the researches published before October 3, 2021, based on the science-mapping approach. Science mapping enables us to present a broad picture and comprehensive review of a significant number of documents using co-citation, bibliographic coupling, collaboration, and co-word analysis. To this end, a dataset of 6311 pedestrian safety papers was collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database. First, a descriptive analysis was carried out, covering whole yearly publications, most-cited papers, and most-productive authors, as well as sources, affiliations, and countries. In the next steps, science mapping was implemented to clarify the social, intellectual, and conceptual structures of pedestrian-safety research using the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix R-package tools. Remarkably, based on intellectual structure, pedestrian safety demonstrated an association with seven research areas: “Pedestrian crash frequency models”, “Pedestrian injury severity crash models”, “Traffic engineering measures in pedestrians’ safety”, “Global reports around pedestrian accident epidemiology”, “Effect of age and gender on pedestrians’ behavior”, “Distraction of pedestrians”, and “Pedestrian crowd dynamics and evacuation”. Moreover, according to conceptual structure, five major research fronts were found to be relevant, namely “Collision avoidance and intelligent transportation systems (ITS)”, “Epidemiological studies of pedestrian injury and prevention”, “Pedestrian road crossing and behavioral factors”, “Pedestrian flow simulation”, and “Walkable environment and pedestrian safety”. Finally, “autonomous vehicle”, “pedestrian detection”, and “collision avoidance” themes were identified as having the greatest centrality and development degrees in recent years.

A comprehensive analysis on the effects of signal strategies, intersection geometry, and traffic operation factors on right-turn crashes at signalised intersections: An application of hierarchical crash frequency model

Right-turn movements (equivalent to left turn movements for countries that drive on the right) at intersections are among the most complex driving maneuvers and require a high level of attention for turning across (potentially) oncoming traffic by accepting a safe gap. Not surprisingly, right-turn-involved crashes are one of the most frequent collision types at intersections (e.g., 42% of all signalised intersection crashes in Queensland, Australia). Unfortunately, the causes and contributing factors to right-turn crashes are not well understood, particularly the effect of right-turn signal strategies on the crash risk. In the safety literature, signal strategies are coarsely considered in two generic categories-protected right-turns and permitted right-turns. In reality, right-turn signal strategies could be of various types (usually 5) based on the level of intersection complexity and potential traffic conflicts. The effects of these signal strategies, along with the geometric and traffic factors, have not been well studied. To fill this gap, this study investigates the effects of right-turn signal strategies, intersection geometry and traffic operations factors on right-turn crashes at signalised intersections. To achieve this aim, crash frequency models were estimated using crash data from 221 signalised intersections in Queensland from the years spanning 2012 to 2018. Hierarchical Poisson Regression Models (random intercept models) were employed to capture the hierarchical structure of influences on crashes, with upper-level capturing intersection characteristics and lower-level capturing approach characteristics. The hierarchical model structure, disaggregate exposure variables, and signal strategies examined in this study give rise to an entirely unique study in the literature.

On the interpretability of machine learning methods in crash frequency modeling and crash modification factor development

Machine learning (ML) model interpretability has attracted much attention recently given the promising performance of ML methods in crash frequency studies. Extracting accurate relationship between risk factors and crash frequency is important for understanding the causal effects of risk factors and developing safety countermeasures. However, there is no study that comprehensively summarizes ML model interpretation methods and provides guidance for safety researchers and practitioners. This research aims to fill this gap. Model-based and post-hoc ML interpretation methods are critically evaluated and compared to study their suitability in crash frequency modeling. These methods include classification and regression tree (CART), multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations (LIME), Local Sensitivity Analysis (LSA), Partial Dependence Plots (PDP), Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA), and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP). Model-based interpretation methods cannot reveal the detailed interaction relationships among risk factors. LIME can only be used to analyze the effects of a risk factor at the prediction level. LSA and PDP assume that different risk factors are independently distributed. Both GSA and SHAP can account for the potential correlation among risk factors. However, only SHAP can visualize the detailed relationships between crash outcomes and risk factors. This study also demonstrates the potential and benefits of using ML and SHAP to derive Crash Modification Factors (CMF). Finally, it is emphasized that statistical and ML models may not directly differentiate causation from correlation. Understanding the differences between them is critical for developing reliable safety countermeasures.

A deep generative approach for crash frequency model with heterogeneous imbalanced data

Crash frequency model is often subject to excessive zero observation because of the rare nature of crashes. To address the problem of imbalanced crash data, a deep generative approach – augmented variational autoencoder – was proposed to generate synthetic crash data for the association measure between crash and possible explanatory factors. This approach was characterized by a factorized generative model and refined objective function. For instance, the generative model can handle heterogeneous data including real-valued, nominal and ordinal distributions. On the other hand, the refined objective function can control for the random effect by better recognizing both the zero-crash and non-zero crash cases. In this study, comprehensive traffic and crash data of multiple distribution types in Hong Kong in the period between 2014 and 2016 were used. To assess the data generation performance of the proposed augmented variational autoencoder method, a conventional data synthesis technique (synthetic minority oversampling technique-nominal continuous) was also considered. Performances of crash frequency models of total crashes and fatal and severe injury crashes are assessed. For total crashes, the results of parameter estimation, in terms of statistical fit, prediction accuracy, and explanatory factors identified, of the crash frequency model based on synthetic data using the augmented variational autoencoder method adhered closer to that based on original data, compared to that based on synthetic data using the synthetic minority oversampling technique-nominal continuous method. For fatal and severe injury crashes, zero-crash observations were prevalent, with the ratio of zero-crash to non-zero crash cases of 9 to 1. Crash data was first balanced using the proposed augmented variational autoencoder method. Then, fatal and severe injury crash frequency models using correlated random parameter models based on original data and balanced data were estimated respectively. Results indicate that fatal and severe injury crash frequency model based on balanced data outperforms its counterpart, with the lowest root mean square error, lowest mean absolute error, and highest number of crash explanatory factors identified. More importantly, correlation between the random parameters can be revealed. Findings of this study should shed light to both researchers and practitioners for the development of crash frequency models, with which the problem of excessive zero observations is prevalent when highly disaggregated traffic and crash data by time and space are used.

Accommodating for systematic and unobserved heterogeneity in panel data: Application to macro-level crash modeling

The current research contributes to the burgeoning literature on multivariate models by proposing a hybrid model framework that (a) incorporates unobserved heterogeneity in a parsimonious framework and (b) allows for additional flexibility to accommodate for observed/systematic heterogeneity. Specifically, we estimate a Latent Segmentation Panel Mixed Negative Binomial (LPMNB) model to study the zonal level crash counts across different crash types. Further, we undertake a comparison exercise of the proposed hybrid LPMNB model with a Panel Mixed Negative Binomial model (PMNB) that accommodates for unobserved heterogeneity via a simulation setting. The analysis is conducted using the zonal level crash records by different crash types from Central Florida region for the year 2016 considering a comprehensive set of exogenous variables. The comparison exercise is further augmented by computing several goodness of fit measures along with elasticity analysis and the results offered by the LPMNB model highlight the value of the proposed model. Further, to offer insights on model selection incorporating computational complexity dimension along with other important attributes, we conduct a trade-off analysis considering four different attributes: (a) model fit, (b) prediction, (c) inference power and (d) computational complexity; across six different model strictures including traditional crash frequency models and our proposed LPMNB model.

Analysis of Crash Frequency and Crash Severity in Thailand: Hierarchical Structure Models Approach

Currently, research on the development of crash models in terms of crash frequency on road segments and crash severity applies the principles of spatial analysis and heterogeneity due to the methods’ suitability compared with traditional models. This study focuses on crash severity and frequency in Thailand. Moreover, this study aims to understand crash frequency and fatality. The result of the intra-class correlation coefficient found that the spatial approach should analyze the data. The crash frequency model’s best fit is a spatial zero-inflated negative binomial model (SZINB). The results of the random parameters of SZINB are insignificant, except for the intercept. The crash frequency model’s significant variables include the length of the segment and average annual traffic volume for the fixed parameters. Conversely, the study finds that the best fit model of crash severity is a logistic regression with spatial correlations. The variances of random effect are significant such as the intersection, sideswipe crash, and head-on crash. Meanwhile, the fixed-effect variables significant to fatality risk include motorcycles, gender, non-use of safety equipment, and nighttime collision. The paper proposes a policy applicable to agencies responsible for driver training, law enforcement, and those involved in crash-reduction campaigns.

Macroscopic analysis on the frequency and severity of pedestrian crashes on National Roads in Metro Manila, Philippines

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users; thus, understanding the primary factors that lead to pedestrian crashes is a chief concern in road safety. However, owing to the limitations of crash data in developing countries, only a few studies have evaluated the comprehensive characteristics of pedestrian crashes, specifically on different road types. This study attempted to develop pedestrian crash frequency and severity models on national roads by using the road characteristics and built environment parameters, based on the road crash data (2016–2018) that involved pedestrians in Metro Manila, Philippines. Remarkable findings included primary roads, presence of footbridges, road sections with bad surface conditions, and increased fractions of commercial, residential, and industrial roads, which exhibited a greater likelihood of pedestrian crashes. Crashes involving elderly pedestrians, heavier vehicles, late-night hours, fair surface conditions, and open spaces were associated with increased likelihoods of fatal outcomes. Essentially, this study provides a macroscopic perspective in understanding the factors associated with the severity and frequency of pedestrian crashes, and it would aid the authorities in identifying proper countermeasures.

Identifying Temporal Aggregation Effect on Crash-Frequency Modeling

Aggregation of spatiotemporal data can encounter potential information loss or distort attributes via individual observation, which would influence modeling results and lead to an erroneous inference, named the ecological fallacy. Therefore, deciding spatial and temporal resolution is a fundamental consideration in a spatiotemporal analysis. The modifiable temporal unit problem (MTUP) occurs when using data that is temporally aggregated. While consideration of the spatial dimension has been increasingly studied, the counterpart, a temporal unit, is rarely considered, particularly in the traffic safety modeling field. The purpose of this research is to identify the MTUP effect in crash-frequency modeling using data with various temporal scales. A sensitivity analysis framework is adopted with four negative binomial regression models and four random effect negative binomial models having yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly temporal units. As the different temporal unit was applied, the result of the model estimation also changed in terms of the mean and significance of the parameter estimates. Increasing temporal correlation due to using the small temporal unit can be handled with the random effect models.

Applying a Bayesian multivariate spatio-temporal interaction model based approach to rank sites with promise using severity-weighted decision parameters

Ranking sites with promise is an essential step for cost-effective engineering improvement on roadway traffic safety. This study proposes a Bayesian multivariate spatio-temporal interaction model based approach for ranking sites. The severity-weighted crash frequency and crash rate are used as the decision parameters. The posterior expected rank and posterior mean of the decision parameters are adopted as the statistical criteria. The proposed approach is applied to rank road segments on Kaiyang Freeway in China, which is conducted via programming in the freeware WinBUGS. The results of Bayesian estimation and assessment indicate that incorporating spatio-temporal correlations and interactions into the crash frequency model significantly improves the overall goodness-of-fit performance and affects the identified crash-contributing factors and the estimated safety effects for each severity level. With respect to the ranking results, significant differences are found between those generated from the proposed approach and those generated from the naïve ranking approach and a Bayesian approach based on the multivariate Poisson-lognormal model. Besides, the ranks under the posterior mean criterion are found generally consistent with those under the posterior expected rank criterion.

Exploring analytical, simulation-based, and hybrid model structures for multivariate crash frequency modeling

In safety literature, there are two ways to incorporate the potential correlation between multiple crash frequency variables: (1) simulation-based approach and (2) analytical closed-form approach. The current research effort undertakes a comparison between simulation-based multivariate model and copula based closed-form approach to analyze zonal level crash counts for different crash types. Further, the research builds on earlier copula based models by incorporating random parameters thus proposing a hybrid (combination of analytical and simulation based system) approach to incorporating unobserved heterogeneity. Within the proposed hybrid copula model, the empirical analysis involves estimation of count models using four different copula structures which cover a wide range of dependency structures, including radial symmetry and asymmetry, and asymptotic tail independence and dependence. Further, to the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to incorporate attribute variability (random parameters) effect within the copula framework. The empirical analysis is based on traffic analysis zone (TAZ) level crash count data for both motorized and non-motorized crashes from Central Florida for the year 2016. A comprehensive set of exogenous variables including roadway, built environment, land-use, traffic, socio-demographic and spatial spillover characteristics are considered for the analysis. The resulting data fit and prediction performance offered by the proposed approach clearly highlights the hybrid model – Random Parameter Copula based approach’s superiority over the purely simulation-based multivariate model in our study context. The comparison exercise is further augmented by undertaking an in-depth comparison for different count events across different crash types and a correct classification analysis. The estimated results further reinforce the improved performance of the Random Parameter Copula-based multivariate approach. The applicability of the model for hot spot identification is illustrated by generating plots identifying high-crash and low- crash zones by crash type in the Central Florida region.

Enhancing non-motorist safety by simulating trip exposure using a transportation planning approach

Traditionally, in developing non-motorized crash prediction models, safety researchers have employed land use and urban form variables as surrogate for exposure information (such as pedestrian, bicyclist volumes and vehicular traffic). The quality of these crash prediction models is affected by the lack of “true” non-motorized exposure data. High-resolution modeling frameworks such as activity-based or trip-based approach could be pursued for evaluating planning level non-motorist demand. However, running a travel demand model system to generate demand inputs for non-motorized safety is cumbersome and resource intensive. The current study is focused on addressing this drawback by developing an integrated non-motorized demand and crash prediction framework for mobility and safety analysis. Towards this end, we propose a three-step framework to evaluate non-motorists safety: (1) develop aggregate level models for non-motorist generation and attraction at a zonal level, (2) develop non-motorists trip exposure matrices for safety evaluation and (3) develop aggregate level non-motorists crash frequency and severity proportion models. The framework is developed for the Central Florida region using non-motorist demand data from National Household Travel Survey (2009) Florida Add-on and non-motorist crash frequency and severity data from Florida. The applicability of the framework is illustrated through extensive policy scenario analysis.

Copula-based joint modeling of crash count and conflict risk measures with accommodation of mixed count-continuous margins

This current study proposes to model crash count and conflict risk measures jointly by developing a multivariate copula-based modeling framework. As conflict risk measures can either be event counts or continuous random variables, the proposed framework is devised to accommodate mixed count-continuous margins. Specifically, three longitudinal conflict risk measures extracted from real-world connected vehicle data collected in Ann Arbor, Michigan as well as rear-end crash count are modeled via the multivariate Gaussian copula. The presence of stronger dependences among conflict risk measures than those between conflict risk measures and crash count are revealed and the dependency structure is relatively stable across different conflict risk measure threshold values and sample sizes. Comparing to the existing crash count and conflict risk measures modeling approaches, the proposed modeling framework also contributes to the transportation safety literature by (a) better reflecting safety by treating conflict risk measures and crashes equally; (b) better accounting for the impact of potential unobserved factors on crash count and conflict risk measures simultaneously; and (c) better accounting for the exposure and traffic risk factors and their heterogenous impact on crash count and conflict risk measures. For practical applications, the proposed copula-based approach not only achieves better in-sample crash count prediction accuracies across different sample sizes of conflict risk measure comparing to several classical crash frequency models in literature, but also connects with the commonly used high-risk location ranking measure, namely potential for safety improvement, for high-risk location identification as there is great similarity between the marginal cumulative distribution functions that constitute the copula and the potential for safety improvement. Based on the total rank differences test, the copula-based high-risk location ranking measure shows the potential to identify high-risk locations that are risky by both crash count and conflict risk measures simultaneously.

An accelerated hierarchical Bayesian crash frequency model with accommodation of spatiotemporal interactions

Although spatial and temporal correlations of crash observations have been well addressed in the literature, the interactions between them are rarely studied. This study proposes a Bayesian spatiotemporal interaction (BSTI) approach for crash frequency modeling with an integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) method to greatly expedite the Bayesian estimation process. Manhattan, which is the most densely populated urban area of New York City, is selected as the study area. Hexagons are used as the basic geographic units to capture crash, transportation, land use, and demo-economic data from 2013 to 2019. A series of Bayesian models with various spatiotemporal specifications are developed and compared. The BSTI model with Type II interaction, which assumes that the structured temporal random effect interacts with the unstructured spatial random effect is found to outperform the others in terms of goodness-of-fit and the ability to reduce the dependency of residuals. It is also found that the unobserved heterogeneity is mostly attributed to the spatial effects instead of temporal effects. In addition, the BSTI Type II model also yields the lowest predictive error when the last year’s data are used as the test set. The proposed BSTI approach can potentially advance safety analytics by achieving high prediction accuracy and computational efficiency while maintaining its interpretability on the effects of contributing factors and the unobserved heterogeneity.

Role of exposure in bicycle safety analysis: Effect of cycle path choice

Despite the recognized environmental and health benefits of cycling, bicyclists are vulnerable to severe injuries and mortalities in the road crashes. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to identify the possible factors that may affect the bicycle crash risk. However, reliable estimates of bicycle exposure are often not available for the safety risk evaluation of different entities. The objective of this study is to advance the estimation of exposure in the bicycle safety analysis, using the detailed origin-destination data of each trip of the London public bicycle rental system. Two approaches including shortest path method (SPM) and weighted shortest path method (WSPM) are proposed to model the bicycle path choice and to estimate the bicycle distance traveled (BDT). Then, the bicycle crash frequency models that adopt BDTs as the exposure estimated using SPM and three WSPMs are developed. Three exposure measures including bicycle trips, bicycle time traveled (BTT), and BDT are assessed. Results indicate that the bicycle crash frequency models that incorporate the BDTs using WSPM have superior model fit. Moreover, the bicycle crash frequency model that incorporate the BDTs as the exposure outperforms those that incorporate the bicycle trips and BTT as the exposures. Findings of current study are indicative to the development of bicycle crash frequency model. Moreover, it should enhance the understanding on the roles of environmental, traffic and bicyclist factors in bicycle crash risk, based on appropriate estimates of bicycle exposures. Therefore, it should be useful to the transport planners and engineers for the development of bicycle infrastructures that can improve the overall bicycle safety in the long run.

Investigation of the Factors Influencing the Crash Frequency in Expressway Tunnels: Considering Excess Zero Observations and Unobserved Heterogeneity

The existing crash modeling techniques for expressway tunnels must overcome the following difficulties: 1) The collected risk factors contributing to the tunnel crashes include narrow ranges, especially the pavement conditions and weather conditions of the tunnels are rarely taken into account. 2) Most researchers ignored the estimation deviation caused by the excess zero observations of tunnel crash datasets. 3) No existing tunnel crash model can combine the random-parameters approach and spatial-temporal approach to solve the estimation deviation caused by the inter-samples and spatial-temporal heterogeneity. To address these problems, this study presents an investigation of the safety effects of risk factors of tunnel design features, traffic conditions, pavement conditions and weather conditions utilizing a 12-quarter period (3 years) of data as well as five crash frequency models: 1) a fixed parameters negative binomial model (FPNB), 2) a random parameters negative binomial model (RPNB), 3) a random parameters negative binomial Lindley model (RPNBL), 4) a spatial and random parameters negative binomial Lindley model (SP-RPNBL), and 5) a spatial-temporal and random parameters negative binomial Lindley model (ST-RPNBL). The results showed that the ST-RPNBL model solves the deviation that arises from excess zero observations by introducing the Lindley distribution and considers the unobserved heterogeneity by introducing both the random parameters and spatial-temporal parameters that provided better goodness of fit and offered more insights into the factors that contribute to tunnel safety. Furthermore, the ST-RPNBL model detected 16 variables that were significantly correlated with tunnel crash frequency, of which 12 variables were associated with a higher crash frequency and four variables were associated with a lower crash frequency. The random variables of the curvature, the steep downgrade indicator, the proportion of class 5 vehicle and the skidding resistance index (SRI) were identified, and the influence of each significant variable on the crash frequency was analyzed.

Developing Roadway Safety Models for Winter Weather Conditions Using a Feature Selection Algorithm

Inclement winter weather such as snow, sleet, and freezing rain significantly impacts roadway safety. To assess the safety implications of winter weather, maintenance operations, and traffic operations, various crash frequency models have been developed. In this study, several datasets, including for weather, snowplow operations, and traffic information, were combined to develop a robust crash frequency model for winter weather conditions. When developing statistical models using such large-scale multivariate datasets, one of the challenges is to determine which explanatory variables should be included in the model. This paper presents a feature selection framework using a machine-learning algorithm known as the Boruta algorithm and exhaustive search to select a list of variables to be included in a negative binomial crash frequency model. This paper’s proposed feature selection framework generates consistent and intuitive results because the feature selection process reduces the complexity of interactions among different variables in the dataset. This enables our crash frequency model to better help agencies identify effective ways to improve roadway safety via winter maintenance operations. For example, increased plowing operations before the start of storms are associated with a decrease in crash rates. Thus, pretreatment operations can play a significant role in mitigating the impact of winter storms.

The influence of traffic, geometric and context variables on urban crash types: A grouped random parameter multinomial logit approach

Numerous road safety studies have been dedicated to the estimation of crash frequency and injury severity models. However, previous research has shown that different factors may influence the occurrence of crashes of different types. In this study, a dataset including information from crashes occurred at segments and intersections of urban roads in Bari, Italy was used to estimate the likelihood of occurrence of various crash types. The crash types considered are: single-vehicle, angle, rear-end and sideswipe. Models were estimated through a mixed logit structure considering various crash types as outcomes of the dependent variable and several traffic, geometric and context-related factors as explanatory variables (both site- and crash-specific). To account for systematic, unobserved variations among the crashes occurred on the same segment or intersection, the grouped random parameters approach was employed. The latter allows the estimation of segment- or intersection-specific parameters for the variables resulting in random parameters. This approach allows assessing the variability of results across the observations for individual segments/intersections.Segment type and the presence of bus lanes were included as explanatory variables in the model of crash types for segments. Traffic volume per entering lane, total entering lanes, total number of zebra crossings and the balance between major and minor traffic volumes at intersections were included as explanatory variables in the model of crash types for intersections. Area type was included in both segment and intersection models. The typical traffic at the moment of the crash (from on-line traffic prediction tools) and the period of the day were associated with different crash type likelihoods for both segments and intersections. Significant variations in the effect of several predictors across different segments or intersections were identified. The applicability of the study framework is demonstrated, in terms of identifying roadway sites with anomalous tendencies or high-risk sites with respect to specific crash types.

Fifty Years of Accident Analysis & Prevention: A Bibliometric and Scientometric Overview

Accident Analysis & Prevention (AA&P) is a leading academic journal established in 1969 that serves as an important scientific communication platform for road safety studies. To celebrate its 50th anniversary of publishing outstanding and insightful studies, a multi-dimensional statistical and visualized analysis of the AA&P publications between 1969 and 2018 was performed using the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database, bibliometrics and mapping-knowledge-domain (MKD) analytical methods, and scientometric tools. It was shown that the annual number of AA&P’s publications has grown exponentially and that over the course of its development, AA&P has been a leader in the field of road safety, both in terms of innovation and dissemination. By determining its key source countries and organizations, core authors, highly co-cited published documents, and high burst-strength publications, we showed that AA&P’s areas of focus include the “effects of hazard and risk perception on driving behavior”, “crash frequency modeling analysis”, “intentional driving violations and aberrant driving behavior”, “epidemiology, assessment and prevention of road traffic injuries”, and “crash-injury severity modeling analysis”. Furthermore, the key burst papers that have played an important role in advancing research and guiding AA&P in new directions – particularly those in the fields of crash frequency and crash-injury severity modeling analyses were identified. Finally, a modified Haddon matrix in the era of intelligent, connected and autonomous transportation systems is proposed to provide new insights into the emerging generation of road safety studies.

Insights from Integrated Geo-Location Data for Pedestrian Crashes, Demographics, and Land Uses

This study investigates the effects of demographics and land uses on pedestrian crash frequency by integrating the contextual geo-location data. To address the issue of heterogeneity, three negative binomial models (with fixed parameters, with observed heterogeneity, and with both observed and unobserved heterogeneities) were examined. The best fit with the data was obtained by explicitly incorporating the observed and unobserved heterogeneity into the model. This highlights the need to accommodate both observed heterogeneity across neighborhood characteristics and unobserved heterogeneity in pedestrian crash frequency modeling. The marginal effect results imply that some land-use types (e.g., discount department stores and fast-food restaurants) could be candidate locations for the education campaigns to improve pedestrian safety. The observed heterogeneity of the area indicator suggests that priority should be given to more populated low-income areas for pedestrian safety, but attention is also needed for the higher-income areas with larger densities of bus stops and hotels. Moreover, three normally distributed random parameters (proportion of older adults, proportion of lower-speed roads, and density of convenience stores in the area) were identified as having random effects on the probability of pedestrian crash occurrences. Finally, the identification of pedestrian crash hot zone provides practitioners with prioritized neighborhoods (e.g., a list of areas) for developing effective pedestrian safety countermeasures.