Spatiotemporal instability analysis in single-vehicle crash severity on different roadway classifications

ABSTRACT

The severity of crashes on national/provincial roads, urban roads, and rural roads was analyzed. Random parameters logit models with heterogeneity in means and variances under different time periods of the day and roadway classifications were employed. Analysis of factors influencing injury severity of single-vehicle crashes in the driver, vehicle, road, and environment to explore correlation and difference between influencing factors and crash severity. The results showed that the effect of factors that determine injury severity varied significantly across different roadway classifications. Specifically, driver age (<30) and summer were only significantly associated with single-vehicle crashes on urban roads. Dawn/dusk was only significant in single-vehicle crashes on rural roads. Meanwhile, overall spatiotemporal instability was observed in the study. While several indicators were also reported to show relative spatial or temporal stability such as male, driver age (>55), motorcycle, traffic control, and visibility (<100 m).

KEYWORDS:

• Traffic safety
• single-vehicle crashes
• random parameters logit model
• injury severity
• roadway classifications

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate the support of the Shandong Department of Transportation (SDOT), the Zibo Department of Transportation (ZDOT), and the Center for Accident Research in Zibo (CARZ).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to security and privacy issues.

Additional information

Funding

This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 52272343], Open Project of Key Laboratory of Road Traffic Safety of the Ministry of Public Security [Grant No. 2023ZDSYSKFKT14] and University and Urban Integration Development Plan Project of Zhangdian District [Grant No. 2022JS002].