Development of crash prediction models with individual vehicular data

Typical engineering research on traffic safety focuses on identifying either dangerous locations or contributing factors through a post-crash analysis using aggregated traffic flow data and crash records. A recent development of transportation engineering technologies provides ample opportunities to enhance freeway traffic safety using individual vehicular information. However, little research has been conducted regarding methodologies to utilize and link such technologies to traffic safety analysis. Moreover, traffic safety research has not benefited from the use of hurdle-type models that might treat excessive zeros more properly than zero-inflated models. This study developed a new surrogate measure, unsafe following condition (UFC), to estimate traffic crash likelihood by using individual vehicular information and applied it to basic sections of interstate highways in Virginia. Individual vehicular data and crash data were used in the development of statistical crash prediction models including hurdle models. The results showed that an aggregated UFC measure was effective in predicting traffic crash occurrence, and the hurdle Poisson model outperformed other count data models in a certain case. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.