Abstract
This research analyzes the main factors that lead to the occurrence of traffic conflicts on the urban highway Autopista Central in Santiago, Chile. We propose a vehicle-by-vehicle approach in which we estimate the probability that each vehicle passing through each gate of Autopista Central has a conflict. This approach allows us to study variables at an individual level that have not been analyzed before using full real-world data, such as driver (age and sex) and vehicle information (type and age). We propose a Pseudo Time-to-Collision (PTTC) as a surrogate safety measure, defining different critical PTTC thresholds for each gate. Subsequently, a logistic regression model is built to understand the input variables’ influence on the probability of conflict occurrence. Our results show that men and young drivers are more likely to have a conflict. In addition, the age of the car is negatively correlated with the occurrence of conflicts.
Acknowledgments
Franco Basso gratefully acknowledges the financial support from both the Complex Engineering Systems Institute, ISCI (grant ANID PIA/PUENTE AFB230002) and from ANID-FONDECYT 1241335. Raúl Pezoa acknowledges the financial support from ANID-FONDECYT 1241913. Mauricio Varas acknowledges the financial support from ANID-FONDECYT 1241843.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 To support this point, we randomly took three times the 50% of the January 2021 sample and recalibrated the model, obtaining almost the same results for the estimated coefficient.