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Title:

Incorporating Weather into Region-Wide Safety Planning Prediction Models

Abstract:

This paper summarizes the results of an effort to include weather related variables, particularly various measures of rainfall, into accident frequency prediction and the prediction of the frequency of fatal and/or injury degree of severity crash models. The purpose of the study was to determine whether these variables do in fact improve overall goodness of fit of the models, whether these variables may explain some or all of observed regional differences, and identifying the estimated effects of rainfall on safety. The models are based on Traffic Analysis Zone level datasets from Michigan, and Pima and Maricopa Counties in Arizona. Numerous rain-related variables were found to be statistically significant, selected rain related variables improved the overall goodness of fit, and inclusion of these variables reduced the portion of the model explained by the constant in the base models without weather variables. Rain tends to affect and diminish safety, as expected, in fairly complex ways, depending on rain frequency and intensity.

Source(s):

85th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Arizona State University. For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2006

Author:

Van Schalkwyk, Washington, Mitra

Keywords:


Crashes
Safety
Forecast/Prediction

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