Investigating the Impacts of Real-Time Weather Conditions on Freeway Crash Severity: A Bayesian Spatial Analysis

• Main Authors: Qiang Zeng, Wei Hao, Jaeyoung Lee, Feng Chen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-04-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: crash severity; weather condition; generalized ordered logit model; spatial correlation; conditional autoregressive prior; Bayesian inference
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/8/2768

This study presents an empirical investigation of the impacts of real-time weather conditions on the freeway crash severity. A Bayesian spatial generalized ordered logit model was developed for modeling the crash severity using the hourly wind speed, air temperature, precipitation, visibility, and humidity, as well as other observed factors. A total of 1424 crash records from Kaiyang Freeway, China in 2014 and 2015 were collected for the investigation. The proposed model can simultaneously accommodate the ordered nature in severity levels and spatial correlation across adjacent crashes. Its strength is demonstrated by the existence of significant spatial correlation and its better model fit and more reasonable estimation results than the counterparts of a generalized ordered logit model. The estimation results show that an increase in the precipitation is associated with decreases in the probabilities of light and severe crashes, and an increase in the probability of medium crashes. Additionally, driver type, vehicle type, vehicle registered province, crash time, crash type, response time of emergency medical service, and horizontal curvature and vertical grade of the crash location, were also found to have significant effects on the crash severity. To alleviate the severity levels of crashes on rainy days, some engineering countermeasures are suggested, in addition to the implemented strategies.