Analysis on Characteristics and Causes of Traffic Accidents in Interweaving Areas of Freeways

As the bottleneck section of a freeway, the interweaving area is the main point of accidents. The safety of the freeway interweaving section depends on the driver, road design, vehicle performance, and external environment, all of which result from the joint effects of various factors. Based on the traffic accident data collected from the city of Xi’an in China, this paper carries out mathematical statistics analysis to determine the distribution of accidents, including the accident types and the characteristics of spatial-temporal distribution. Then, based on the analysis of the causal mechanism of accidents, the paper analyzes the causes and main influencing factors of different types of accidents. Combined with the observed characteristics of traffic flow, the relationship between traffic accidents and traffic characteristics is also analyzed. Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions to improve traffic safety in the freeway interweaving section.