Examining Injury Severity of Moped and Motorcycle Occupants with Real-Time Traffic and Weather Data
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 144, Issue 11
Abstract
Currently studies exploring the effect of real-time traffic and weather characteristics on crash severity are relatively limited, and studies focusing on powered two-wheelers (PTWs) are even fewer. The objective of this paper is to add to current knowledge through the investigation of PTW occupant injury severity on the urban motorway Attica Tollway in Athens, Greece. For that purpose, 163 crashes (23 severe/fatal and 140 slight) that occurred between 2006 and 2011 were analyzed by considering real-time traffic and weather parameters. The required crash data was extracted from the Greek crash database of the National Technical University of Athens and also Attica Tollway. Traffic data were extracted from the Traffic Management Center of Attica Tollway, and weather data were extracted from the Hydrological Observatory of Athens (HOA). To reduce data dimensionality and to overcome multicollinearity between variables, a two-step approach was followed. First, principal component analysis and random forests were used as preliminary analyses. To account for the low number of and proportion of killed and severely injured (KSI) occupants, a Firth logistic regression was then applied. Results showed that in general, traffic and speed variations caused more severe injuries whereas weather parameters seemed to have no effect. It was also found that mean speeds and variations in volumes of trucks increased the crash injury severity of PTW crashes, but it was interesting that an increased proportion of trucks led to slighter injuries. The findings of this paper are considered promising and will contribute to better understanding of occupant injury severity on urban motorways by focusing on PTWs.
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Acknowledgments
This research is implemented through the IKY scholarships program and cofinanced by the European Union (European Social Fund—ESF) and Greek national funds through the action entitled Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers, in the framework of the Operational Programme Human Resources Development Program, Education and Lifelong Learning of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2014–2020. The authors would like to explicitly thank George Yannis, Professor of the National Technical University of Athens, for his guidance and advice for improving the work carried out in this research. The authors would also like to thank the Attica Tollway Operations Authority (Attiki Odos) for providing the data, especially officers Pantelis Kopelias and Fanis Papadimitriou.
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Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 144 • Issue 11 • November 2018
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 21, 2017
Accepted: Jun 11, 2018
Published online: Aug 16, 2018
Published in print: Nov 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jan 16, 2019
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