Citation

Jaroszweski D, McNamara T. Travel Behav. Soc. 2014; 1(1): 15-21.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.tbs.2013.10.005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents a novel and rigorous approach to the analysis of the impact of rainfall on road traffic accidents in urban areas. It is argued that previous approaches to rainfall quantification for accident analysis, primarily using a representative surface meteorological station to represent an urban area, may not give an accurate record of the conditions across the city in question. Using an innovative city-wide weather radar approach to rainfall quantification and matched-pairs analysis, road accidents in the UK cities of Manchester and Greater London are examined over a 3-year baseline period (2008-2011). A comparative study is made over the same period used a traditional station-based approach. The resulting relative accident rates demonstrate divergence between the two cities and the two approaches. Although the stricter criteria for a rain event under the weather radar approach gives an increased RAR in Manchester, the RAR observed under these conditions decreases in Greater London. Reasons for the variation in RAR are explored and include traffic volume and speed, other coincident weather conditions and driver behaviour, in accordance with Elvik's (2006) laws of accident causation. It is argued that the approach described in this study offers significant improvements to the analysis of current weather-related accidents by giving a more representative measure of rainfall in urban areas.