Citation

Zheng Z. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 2012; 43: 302-312.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.04.103

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper investigates relationship between traffic conditions and the crash occurrence likelihood (COL) using the I-880 data. To remedy the data limitations and the methodological shortcomings suffered by previous studies, a multi-resolution data processing method is proposed and implemented, upon which binary logistic models were developed. The major findings of this paper are: 1) traffic conditions have significant impacts on COL at the study site; Specifically, COL in a congested (transitioning) traffic flow is about 6 (1.6) times of that in a free flow condition; 2) Speed variance alone is not sufficient to capture traffic dynamics' impact on COL; a traffic chaos indicator that integrates speed, speed variance, and flow is proposed and shows a promising performance; 3) Models based on aggregated data shall be interpreted with caution. Generally, conclusions obtained from such models shall not be generalized to individual vehicles (drivers) without further evidences using high-resolution data and it is dubious to either claim or disclaim speed kills based on aggregated data.