Journal of Safety Research - Traffic Records Forum proceedings

36 (2005) 485 – 487

www.elsevier.com/locate/jsr www.nsc.org

Traffic Records Forum Proceedings Paper

Advantages and disadvantages of different crash modeling techniques

Thobias Sando *, Renatus Mussa 1, John Sobanjo 2, Lisa Spainhour 3
Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, 2525 Pottsdamer Street, Room 129,
Tallahassee, FL 32310, USA
Available online 18 November 2005

Keywords: Modeling; Crashes; Advantages; Disadvantages; Techniques

1. Problem Statement Poisson regression models pertaining to their underlying

Modeling of traffic crashes is a complex undertaking.
Previous studies have used a variety of techniques to analyze
crashes. The choice of the technique to be used in any specific
modeling problem can be challenging. The methods that have
been mostly used include regression analysis, artificial neural
networks, and pattern recognition methods that include
nearest neighbor rule and Bayesian belief network technique.
The knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of each
method would help safety analysts on deciding the most
appropriate method for each particular analysis. This paper
provides an insight on the advantages and disadvantages of
each of the aforementioned group of methods.
2. Modeling techniques
2.1. Regression analysis
Traditionally, crashes have been modeled using regression
analysis methods. Several studies have shown that linear
regression has some undesirable statistical properties when
applied to crash modeling. Jovanis and Chang (1986)
indicated potential limitations of linear regression and
distributional assumptions, estimation procedures, functional
form of accident rate, and sensitivity to short road sections.
Miaou, Hu, Wright, Rathi, and Davis (1992) used a Poisson
regression model to establish the empirical relationship
between truck collisions and highway geometrics on a rural
interstate in North Carolina. Using Poison regression requires
the mean and variance of the dependent variable to be equal.
In most crash data, the variance of the crash frequency
exceeds the mean and, in such case, the data would be over
dispersed.
Fridstrom, Ifver, Ingebrightsen, Kulmala, and Thomsen
(1995) measured the contribution of randomness, exposure,
weather, and daylight to the variation in road crash counts.
They concluded that simple Poisson regression models can
come very close to explaining almost all the systematic
variations in crash data set. However, when the events are
not independent, it would be strongly advisable to use
Negative Binomial rather than pure Poisson specification, as
certain amount of over dispersion must always be expected
in such cases. Because of highly nonlinear internal relation-
ships of variables that influence crash occurrences, Abdel-
wahab and Abdel-Aty (2001) suggested the use of artificial
neural networks (ANN) over regression methods.
2.2. Artificial neural networks

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 850 410 6233; fax: +1 850 410 6142. Artificial neural networks (ANN) consists a network of
E-mail addresses: sando@eng.fsu.edu (T. Sando), mussa@eng.fsu.edu many simple processors—units, nodes, or neurons. There
(R. Mussa), sobanjo@eng.fsu.edu (J. Sobanjo), spainhou@eng.fsu.edu are a few previous research studies that have used artificial
(L. Spainhour).
1
Tel.: +1 850 410 6191; fax: +1 850 410 6142.
neural networks in crash prediction. Vogt and Bared (1998)
2
Tel.: +1 850 410 6153; fax: +1 850 410 6142. presented an artificial neural network (ANN) concept in
3
Tel.: +1 850 410 6123; fax: +1 850 410 6142. crash modeling. According to the study, the most delicate
0022-4375/$ - see front matter D 2005 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2005.10.006
486 T. Sando et al. / Journal of Safety Research - Traffic Records Forum proceedings 36 (2005) 485 – 487
part of neural network modeling is generalization—the
development of a model that is reliable in predicting future
crashes. The study also suggests that overfitting (i.e., getting
weights for which the error is small on the training set that
even random variation is accounted for) can be minimized
by having two validation samples in addition to the training
sample.
Musone, Ferrari, and Oneta (1999) used ANN to analyze
urban crashes in the city of Milan in Italy. The study applied
the feed-forward neural networks with a back-propagation
learning paradigm. Abdelwahab and Abdel-Aty (2001)
developed ANN models to predict driver injury severity in
traffic accidents at signalized intersections. The study
investigated the use of two well known neural network
paradigms, the multilayer perceptron (MLP) and fuzzy
adaptive resonance theory (ART) neural networks. The
MLP neural network has a better generalization perfor-
mance of 65.6% and 60.4% for the training and testing
phases, respectively. The performance of the MLP was
compared with an ordered logit model. The ordered logit
model was able to correctly classify only 58.9% and 57.1%
for the training and testing phases, respectively.
Artificial neural networks (ANN) approach has the
following advantages: (a) there is no need to assume an
underlying data distribution; (b) neural networks are
applicable to multivariate non-linear problems; and (c) the
transformations of the variables are automated in the
computational process. However, ANN technique has
several disadvantages including: (a) minimizing over-fitting
requires a great deal of computational effort, and (b) the
individual relations between the input variables and the
output variables are not developed by engineering judgment
so that the model tends to be a black box without analytical
basis.
3. Pattern recognition methods
3.1. Nearest neighbor rule
The nearest neighbor analysis is a classification method
in which the class of an unknown record is assigned after
comparisons between the unknown record and all known
records (training data) in data repository are made. The
degree of similarity between different records is determined
by a function called the distance function. Nukoolkit and
Chen (2001) used two different distance functions—
Euclidian Distance (ED) and Value Difference Metric
(VDM) distance both combined with k-mode clustering in
predicting whether a car crash will have either an injury or a
non-injury outcome using a subset of year 2000 Alabama
interstate alcohol-related crashes. The prediction errors of
33% and 45% were observed using ED and VDM methods,
respectively. The study further proposed an improved
technique that combines the distance function with decision
tree clustering which reduced the prediction error to 19%.
Hattori and Takahashi (1999) reported that k-nearest
neighbor (k-NN) rule is effective when the probability
distributions of the feature variables are not known and
therefore the Bayes decision rule cannot be used. It should
be noted however that the definition of the distance
measurement in crash variables is difficult and subjective.
The existence of variables that vary in form and magnitude
makes it difficult to establish the distance function. While
some variables are continuous, others are discrete. In
addition, even within the continuous and discrete variable
groups, the range of magnitudes and the number of
categories differ from variable to variable. This lessens the
appropriateness of the nearest neighbor technique in crash
prediction.
3.2. Bayesian belief networks technique
Most of the techniques used for modeling crashes require a
prior knowledge of the distribution of crash parameters.
Sometimes the knowledge about a distribution is not directly
known but instead the statistical dependencies or indepen-
dencies among the variables are known. For example, by
intuition there exists a dependency between side swipe
crashes with the lane width, vehicle speed and severity of
the crash, traffic volume and the crash rate, to name a few. The
dependency between crash occurrence and traffic factors
such as AADT, geometric factors such as number of lanes,
and design factors such as speed could be established. The
internal dependencies could then be represented by condi-
tional probabilities that could be used to determine the
likelihood of the magnitude of crashes in a particular roadway
segment given certain conditions.
The Bayesian Belief Networks technique is fairly new.
The technique is being researched in areas that have
complex dependency of variables such as medical diagnos-
tic systems, real-time weapons scheduling, computer pro-
cessor fault diagnosis, generator monitoring expert system,
and software troubleshooting. Bayesian Belief Networks are
appropriate for modeling crashes due to the fact that
dependencies between factors are known and can be used
to construct the belief network structure.
4. Summary
The review of several studies on models used in highway
safety modeling data indicates that each method has its
advantages and disadvantages. The advantages and disad-
vantages of several methods have been discussed in this
paper. The suitability of the method depends upon the
desired output and the model inputs. The output of the
model could include type of the crash—fatal, injury, and
property damage only, number of crashes, crash rate,
segment/intersection severity rating and so forth; the inputs
may include different environmental, traffic, and roadway
variables. Further review and analysis of different models is
 T. Sando et al. / Journal of Safety Research - Traffic Records Forum proceedings 36 (2005) 485 – 487
underway. Documentation of limitations of each modeling
technique will help analysts to decide the best method to use
at each particular modeling problem.
References
Abdelwahab, H. T., & Abdel-Aty, M. A. (2001). Development of artificial
neural network models to predict driver injury severity in traffic
accidents at signalized intersections. Journal of the Transportation
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Fridstrom, L., Ifver, J., Ingebrightsen, S., Kulmala, R., & Thomsen, L.
(1995). Measuring the contribution of randomness, exposure, weather,
and daylight to the variation in road accident counts. Accident Analysis
and Prevention, 27(1), 1 – 20.
Hattori, K., & Takahashi, M. (1999). A new nearest-neighbor rule in the
pattern classification problem. Pattern Recognition, 32, 425 – 432.
Jovanis, P., & Chang, H. (1986). Modeling the relationship of accidents to
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Miaou, S., Hu, P., Wright, T., & Davis, S. (1992). Relationship between
truck accidents and highway geometric design: A Poisson regression
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collisions using an artificial intelligence model. Accident Analysis and
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Vogt, A., & Bared, J. G. (1998). Accident models for two-lane rural roads:
Segments and intersections. Publication FHWA-RD-98-133. FHWA,
US. Department of Transportation.
Thobias Sando is a Ph.D. candidate at Florida State University. He is
involved in a research entintled ‘‘Implementation of GIS for Crash Data
Management.’’ His research interests include the use of Pattern Recognition
Techniques and GIS in crash modeling. He also performs research on the
usability of GPS receivers for collecting field crash data.
Renatus Mussa is an Associate Professor and Director of Traffic
Engineering Laboratory at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Dr.
Mussa has been teaching with the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering since 1998. He has
excelled in research in different areas of transportation engineering
including intelligent transportation systems, highway safety, and traffic
studies.
John Sobanjo is an Associate Professor at the FAMU-FSU College of
Engineering. His research areas of interest include infrastructure manage-
ment, implementation of new technology in highway applications,
construction management, and highway safety. Apart from academics, Dr.
Sobanjo has a vast industrial experience gained from working with
California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) and Texas State
Department of Highways and Public Transportation (TxDOT).
Lisa Spainhour is an Associate Professor at the FAMU-FSU College of
Engineering. Her research interests include field performance of roadside
barriers, civil engineering applications of composite materials, and
engineering data modeling and management.