Investigation of extremely severe traffic crashes using fault tree analysis

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to use the fault tree analysis (FTA) to investigate the casual relationship among the event and causes contributing to extremely severe crash that leads to more than 10 deaths. The characteristics of extremely severe traffic crashes were compared with those of normal crashes in terms of gender, driving experience, road technical level, road alignment, time, and weather conditions. A fault tree was developed to provide an overview of the basic causes and their causal relationship. The minimal cut sets were derived to reveal the causal relationships among events and causes contributing to extremely severe crashes. Then, quantitative assessment was conducted to evaluate the importance of various events. The results can help to prioritize actions and resources for crash prevention. Finally, the minimal path set analysis was conducted to identify the minimal sets of basic events needed to be prevented so that extremely severe crash will not occur.

KEYWORDS:

• Traffic safety
• crash fatalities
• extremely severe crash
• fault tree analysis
• casual modeling

Acknowledgments

This research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51561135003 and 51508093), and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20171358). The authors would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for their constructive comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51561135003]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [51508093]; Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20171358].