A Novel Approach to Modeling and Predicting Crash Frequency at Urban Intersections by Crash Type and Injury Severity Level

(PI: Chandra Bhat)

Traffic accidents represent an enormous cost to society in terms of property damage, productivity loss, injury and even death; therefore, identifying the factors that contribute to crashes and developing countermeasures is a priority for transportation and safety professionals. This study formulates and applies a novel approach for the joint modeling of crash frequency and crash type/injury severity. The crash data used in the analysis will be drawn from the Texas Department of Transportation crash incident files corresponding to a set of rural intersections in Texas, and will include yearly crash frequency information by collision type and by injury severity level for year 2010.

Keywords: highway safety, crash injury research, multivariate analysis, intersections