Applying Association Rules Mining to Investigate Pedestrian Fatal and Injury Crash Patterns Under Different Lighting Conditions

The pattern of pedestrian crashes varies greatly depending on lighting circumstances, emphasizing the need of examining pedestrian crashes in various lighting conditions. Using Louisiana pedestrian fatal and injury crash data (2010-2019), this study applied Association Rules Mining (ARM) to identify the hidden pattern of crash risk factors according to three different lighting conditions (daylight, dark-with-streetlight, and dark-no-streetlight). Based on the generated rules, the results show that daylight pedestrian crashes are associated with children (less than 15 years), senior pedestrians (greater than 64 years), older drivers (>64 years), and other driving behaviors such as failure to yield, inattentive/distracted, illness/fatigue/asleep. Additionally, young drivers (15-24 years) are involved in severe pedestrian crashes in daylight conditions. This study also found pedestrian alcohol/drug involvement as the most frequent item in the dark-with-streetlight condition. This crash type is particularly associated with pedestrian action (crossing intersection/midblock), driver age (55-64 years), speed limit (30-35 mph), and specific area type (business with mixed residential area). Fatal pedestrian crashes are found to be associated with roadways with high-speed limits (>50 mph) during the dark without streetlight condition. Some other risk factors linked with high-speed limit related crashes are pedestrians walking with/against the traffic, presence of pedestrian dark clothing, pedestrian alcohol/drug involvement. The research findings are expected to provide an improved understanding of the underlying relationships between pedestrian crash risk factors and specific lighting conditions. Highway safety experts can utilize these findings to conduct a decision-making process for selecting effective countermeasures to reduce pedestrian crashes strategically

Land use, transport, and population health: estimating the health benefits of compact cities.

Using a health impact assessment framework, we estimated the population health effects arising from alternative land-use and transport policy initiatives in six cities. Land-use changes were modelled to reflect a compact city in which land-use density and diversity were increased and distances to public transport were reduced to produce low motorised mobility, namely a modal shift from private motor vehicles to walking, cycling, and public transport. The modelled compact city scenario resulted in health gains for all cities (for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease) with overall health gains of 420-826 disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) per 100 000 population. However, for moderate to highly motorised cities, such as Melbourne, London, and Boston, the compact city scenario predicted a small increase in road trauma for cyclists and pedestrians (health loss of between 34 and 41 DALYs per 100 000 population). The findings suggest that government policies need to actively pursue land-use elements-particularly a focus towards compact cities-that support a modal shift away from private motor vehicles towards walking, cycling, and low-emission public transport. At the same time, these policies need to ensure the provision of safe walking and cycling infrastructure. The findings highlight the opportunities for policy makers to positively influence the overall health of city populations

Characteristics of pedestrian crash : a case study in Louisiana

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable users of the transportation system. While encouraging “Green Transportation”, a sad fact emerges in the United States: Pedestrian deaths are climbing faster than motorist fatalities, reaching nearly 6,000 deaths in 2016 -- the highest total in more than two decades. In the state of Louisiana, pedestrian fatalities reached 104, 14% of annual total fatalities in 2015 with pedestrian fatality rate much higher than the national average. Using seven years of crash data, we investigate pedestrian crash in Louisiana. It is alarming to see that close to 70% of fatal pedestrian crashes involved either alcohol or drugs (not drivers) in the state. Pedestrians’’ physical and mental conditions played a key role in fatal and injury crashes. The older pedestrians (50+ in age) have the highest crash risk, almost twice higher than pedestrians younger than 30. Only 19% of pedestrian crashes occurred at intersections. The “peak hour” for fatal pedestrian crashes is at night. The fatal and injury pedestrian crashes occurred daytime is less than for 40%. How to reduce the pedestrian crashes is a huge task facing Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. This paper will present the detail of the study and demonstrates how to development the effective crash countermeasures to target unique pedestrian crash problem in Louisiana

Investigating Problem of Distracted Drivers on Louisiana Roadways

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17SALSU10. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference: Due to the escalating usage of cellphone and social networking, distracted driving is and will remain as one of the most serious problems faced by Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and law enforcement agencies. Under the aim of in-depth investigation of distracted driving crashes in Louisiana, the specific objectives of this study are: (1) reviewing the crash reports for the quality of distracted driving crash reporting, (2) analyzing distracted driving-related crashes through regression model and data mining algorithm to link the severity of distracted driving crashes with the contributing factors collected in crash data, (3) investigating the observable characteristics of distracted driving roadside and video survey, and (4) recommending the countermeasures utilizing the analysis results and reviews. About 60,000 crashes from ten-year crash data, three types of distracted driving related crashes are modeled: Fatal (K) and Severe (A) Injury; Moderate (B) and Complaint (C) Injury; and Property-damage only (PDO). One statistical method was used for prediction, multinomial logistic regression, and one data mining algorithms was used, random forest. Higher speed limit, curved road, head-on crashes were identified among the key factors. Data mining algorithms performed better in prediction compared to the multinomial logistic regression when sensitivity and specificity were used to compare the predicted results. Fisher’s exact tests of roadside manual observation data shows that gender has no significant influence in cellphone distraction (regardless of distraction type), however age can be influential and associated with driver distraction. Association rule mining of observation data shows that the most predominant type of cellphone use is manipulating mainly occurs at intersections, whereas talking is more associated with segments. In-vehicle video data were coded by the software FaceReader, which captures facial expressions of drivers while driving. Initial results do suggest valence in emotion can be attributed to timing before, during, and after cellphone calls and texting. Physical countermeasure development towards reducing the distraction-related crash severity should be targeted at preventing lane departure crashes. Physical countermeasure development towards reducing the distraction-related crash severity should be targeted at preventing lane departure crashes. Strict enforcement of texting ban with awareness campaign are also expected to prevent distracted driving

Level of Service of Safety Graded Quantitative Research for Low-Grade Highway Sections

Level of Service of Safety is a new concept in the field of traffic safety in China and developed countries, it is a quality indicator which is used to describe the road traffic safety situation and roads providing service of traffic safety for traffic participants. Introducing the study status of the Level of Service of Safety in China and developed countries, the definition of the concept, applications and content. In order to objectively evaluate traffic safety performance at low-grade roads, the concept of the level of service of safety for low-grade roads is brought forward, the factors influencing the sections of level of service of safety are analyzed , then linear, the risk of the roadside, traffic volume, the proportion of trucks and 85% speed difference between cars and large vehicles are selected as the evaluations, level of service of safety for the basic sections of low-grade highway is divided into four levels, the grey class whitening function is established to determine the appropriate threshold, Grey Clustering Method is used to evaluate the level of service of safety for low-grade highway sections, and reasonability of the method is validated. The Grey Clustering Method is applied to evaluate traffic safety of actual low-grade highway section, the result shows that the proposed method is reasonable and feasible

Inconsistent Results of Roundabout Implementation: A Case Study in Louisiana, USA

Because of its historically good performance in many European countries, roundabout has been promoted in the United States since 1990’s. Generally roundabout provides an opportunity to improve traffic flow efficiency and reduce traffic conflicts when designed and located appropriately. Louisiana currently has 25 roundabouts in operation and more than couple of hundreds of roundabouts in design and planning stage. Although the advantages of roundabout have been documented in the U.S., the safety benefits may vary significantly due to uniqueness of each location’s conditions and detailed design selections."br" A study conducted in Louisiana has revealed some interesting results on the safety benefits of roundabout applications from 15 locations. Minimum six years of crash information for each location were used in the analyses including not only the crash database, but also the original crash reports. Through reading the original crash reports, the research team obtained many interesting information from the narratives and collision diagram of original crash report, which proved to be very beneficial in identifying design issues and human factors relating to crash occurrences and consequences (severity)."br" The combined analysis (before-and-after and reviewing crash report) generally demonstrated that the level of success of a roundabout depends on the design details and local driving behavior. With inconsistent results in changes of total crashes before and after roundabout implementation, the analyses show that all roundabout intersections experienced a reduction in severe crashes, but increase in single-vehicle running-off-roadway crashes. The changes in total crashes varied by type of previous traffic control and design details. The significant increase of non-collision crashes (single vehicle crashes) at all roundabout intersections during the first three years of operation may result from unfamiliarity with roundabout operation, distracted drivers, large vehicles with difficulties negotiating curvature and application policy, i.e., lack of intersection lighting at rural areas. By and large, it is clear that the safety effectiveness of roundabout varied with location and design details. In order to optimize roundabout benefit at a particular location, designers must pay close attention to location geometric layout, surrounding environment, and land use. Failure to recognize the unique characteristics at each individual location may lead to unintended results

Optimization of Scanning and Counting Sensor Layout for Full Route Observability with a Bi-Level Programming Model

Utilizing the data obtained from both scanning and counting sensors is critical for efficiently managing traffic flow on roadways. Past studies mainly focused on the optimal layout of one type of sensor, and how to optimize the arrangement of more than one type of sensor has not been fully researched. This paper develops a methodology that optimizes the deployment of different types of sensors to solve the well-recognized network sensors location problem (NSLP). To answer the questions of how many, where and what types of sensors should be deployed on each particular link of the network, a novel bi-level programming model for full route observability is presented to strategically locate scanning and counting sensors in a network. The methodology works in two steps. First, a mathematical program is formulated to determine the minimum number of scanning sensors. To solve this program, a new ‘differentiating matrix’ is introduced and the corresponding greedy algorithm of ‘differentiating first’ is put forward. In the second step, a scanning map and an incidence matrix are incorporated into the program, which extends the theoretical model for multiple sensors’ deployment and provides the replacement method to reduce total cost of sensors without loss of observability. The algorithm developed at the second step involved in two coefficient matrixes from scanning map and incidence parameter enumerate all possibilities of replacement schemes so that cost of different combination schemes can be compared. Finally, the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparison of Nguyen-Dupuis network and real network, which indicates the proposed method is capable to evaluate the trade-off between cost and all routes observability

Parking Choice Behavior Investigation: A Case Study at Beijing Lama Temple

AbstractUnderstanding parking choice behaviour is important in parking facility design and service evaluation. Lack of sufficient studies on parking choice behaviour investigation has been an issue in parking facility planning in China. Using six parking facilities in Beijing Lama Temple as an example, this paper investigates the parking behaviour at the tourist site. Based on the data collected at these six parking facilities through a stated-preference survey, a multinomial logit model was developed, which reveals the relationship between parking decision and influential factors