Weather Effects on Daily Traffic Accidents and Fatalities: Time Series Count Data Approach
The impact of weather conditions on traffic safety is a topic that has attracted considerable interest in the literature. In this research, an integer autoregressive model (INAR) is used to estimate the effects of weather conditions on four traffic safety categories: vehicle accidents, vehicle fatalities, pedestrian accidents and pedestrian fatalities, using 21 years of daily count data for Athens, Greece. The results suggest that the most consistently significant and influential variable is mean daily precipitation height along with its lagged value. It is found that, contrary to much previous research, increases in rainfall reduce the total number of accidents and fatalities as well as the pedestrian accidents and fatalities, a finding that may be attributed to the safety offset hypothesis resulting from more cautious and less speedy driver behavior. Similarly, temperature increase was found to lead to increased accidents.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Karlaftis, Matthew G
- Yannis, George
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2010-1-10 to 2010-1-14
- Date: 2010
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: DVD
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 17p
- Monograph Title: TRB 89th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Automobile drivers; Behavior; Fatalities; Highway safety; Pedestrian vehicle crashes; Pedestrians; Rain; Speed; Traffic crashes; Traffic models; Weather
- Uncontrolled Terms: Road conditions
- Geographic Terms: Athens (Greece)
- Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01153394
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 10-0325
- Files: TRIS, TRB
- Created Date: Mar 31 2010 7:45AM