Investigation of Locational and Non-locational Factors Influencing Crash Severity: A Developing World Perspective

Abstract

Traffic crash is one of the major causes of mortality and injuries in Bangladesh. This study provides multiple crash data reviews over four consecutive years, starting from 2016 to 2019 of Chittagong City Corporation. This analysis is intended to assess the impacts of various parameters on the severity of traffic crashes. The study technique consists of several phases. This research provides a broad description of the variables in the first stage. In the second, the results of the multinomial logistic regression model are presented to help comprehend the influence of various parameters on the severity of the crash. This work has carried out a spatial analysis for vulnerable crash sites identification with hotspot and Kernel density analysis in third phase. The study finds that 80.5% of the crashes were fatal and 10.9% of the crashes were grievous along with most of the deadly collisions occur in spots, not at the intersection and the key casualties are pedestrians. The results show that these crash points are highly clustered with significance. It indicates that traffic crashes occurred repeatedly during the period 2016-2019 at the same level of intensity, nature and number of victims. There are accident hotspots with a large portion in the central part of the city corporation area. 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 25-27, 30 and 31 are found to be vulnerable wards according to Kernel density analysis. Therefore, this study suggests the adoption of policies to prioritize the road users' traffic protection in crash-prone areas.

Keywords: Road accident, Crash severity, Multinomial Logistic Regression, Hotspot Analysis, Kernel Density, Chittagong City, Bangladesh.