Anitha Selvasofia.S.D et al.

, International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology E-ISSN 0976-3945

Research Paper
IDENTIFICATION OF HOTSPOTS OF TRAFFIC
ACCIDENTS USING GIS
Anitha Selvasofia.S.D1, Prince Arulraj.G2

Address for Correspondence

1
Ph.D Research Scholar and Assistant Professor SNS College of Technology, Coimbatore, 641035, TamilNadu
2
Professor and Dean, SNS College of Technology, Coimbatore, 641035, Tamilnadu, India
ABSTRACT
In countries where the economic status is poor, it becomes crucial for those concerned with developmental policies to adopt
appropriate strategies which will ensure that every single unit of money available is used to develop the country in those
fields to facilitate a conductive environment for economic development. Road traffic accidents have been recognized as one
of the adverse elements which contribute to the suffocation of economic growth in the developing countries, due to the high
cost related to them, hence causing social and economic concern. So Traffic safety is an important key and play an integral
role in sustainable transportation development. Now days, the main negative impacts of modern road transportation systems
are injuries and deaths in road accidents. The success of traffic safety and highway improvement programs hinges on the
analysis of accurate and reliable traffic accident data. This study discuss the present state of traffic accident information on
NH 47 Gandhipuram to Avinashi and NH-209 from Gandhipuram to Annur, Coimbatore District. It shall also discuss the
Identification of high rate accident Locations by using GIS Software and safety deficient areas on the highway. Remedial
measures and provisions for traffic safety are suggested for reducing the risk of accidents in blackspots.
KEYWORDS: Traffic, Severity, Accidents Spots, ArcGIS.
1. INTRODUCTION information technology, healthcare and
Worldwide, the transportation problems faced by manufacturing hub of Tamil Nadu. There are six
various nations have increased manifold, major arterial roads in the city: Avinashi Road,
necessitating search for methods or alternatives that Trichy Road, Sathyamangalam Road, Mettupalayam
ensure efficient, safe, feasible and faster means of Road, Palakkad Road and Pollachi Road. There are
transport. It has been estimated that India currently three National Highways passing through the city:
accounts for nearly 10% of road accident fatalities NH-47-(Avinashi Road) towards Salem leading
worldwide. In addition, over 1.3 million people are to Bangalore and Chennai.
seriously injured on the Indian roads every year. NH-67-(Trichy road) towards Karur, Trichy,
Hence, traffic safety has become a major area of Thanjavur , and Nagapattinam.
concern for the authorities. The development of NH-67-(Mettupalayam road) towards ooty and
urban transport system has not kept pace with the Gudalur leading to Karnataka and Kerala.
traffic demand both in terms of quality and quantity. NH-209- (Sathy Road) towards Ooty and
As a result the use of personalized transport mainly Gudalur leading to Karnataka and Kerala.
two wheelers and intermediate public transport is NH-209-(Pollachi Road) towards Palani,
growing at a rapid speed. The disproportionate Dindigul.
Growth in the road length along with unauthorized Apart from state and National Highways, the city
encroachments on road space, lack of traffic and lane corporation maintains a 635.32 kilometers (394.77
discipline and deficiencies in traffic control have miles) long road network. Coimbatore has several
contributed to the increasing problem of congestion major bus stations. The town buses (intra-city)
in urban areas. The advancements in GIS and GPS operate from the town bus stand in Gandhipuram to
can be put to effective use in accident analysis. other bus stations across the city. Inter-city and intra-
Although GIS has been used for over thirty years city buses that connect Coimbatore operate from
however it has only been recently used in the field of different bus stands. The Sathiyamangalam road is a
Transportation. In addition to promoting linkage busy arterial road in city of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu,
between various types of data and maps GIS is able India that connects Coimbatore with Mysore.
to manipulate and visually display numerous types of Avinashi is located to the east of the city of
data for easy comprehension. GIS is a technology for Coimbatore on the way to erode a national highway
managing and processing location and related which is a busy road from Coimbatore to Avinashi.
information. It visually displays the results of The distance from Coimbatore to Avinashi is 42 km.
analyses thus enabling sophisticated analysis and The study area is given in Figure1.
quick decision making. Development of a system that
uses GIS to analyze traffic accidents has been
pursued towards improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of traffic accident countermeasures.
Also GIS would make analysis less time consuming
and less tedious which otherwise would become very
labour sensitive. Thus GIS will offer a platform to
maintain and update accident record database and use
it for further analysis.
2. STUDY AREA
Coimbatore also known as kovai is a city in India. It
is the second largest city and urban agglomeration in
the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, after Chennai and the
sixteenth largest urban agglomeration of India. It is
one of the fastest growing tier-II cities in India. It is
major textile, industrial, commercial, educational, Figure 1 Study Area
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 Anitha Selvasofia.S.D et al., International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology E-ISSN 0976-3945
3. METHODOLOGY AND MATERIALS USED
3.1 Data Collection
In order to determine the accident prone locations in
Coimbatore district, following data were collected
and used.
 Toposheet - Sheet No. 58 A / 16 / SE &58
E / 4 / SW
 Accident report for the years 2010-2014
 Police station limit map
 Month and date of occurrence of accidents
 Time of occurrence
 Exact area of occurrence
 Type of injury
 Type of vehicles involved
3.2 Collection of Ground Control Points(GCP)
The GCPs are collected with the help of the GPS.
The latitude and longitude of five GCPs were
collected.
3.3 Data processing
The steps involved in data processing are shown in
the form of flowchart in Figure2.
2. Gender
3. Month and date of occurrence
4. Vehicles Involved
5. Type of Injury
6. Exact area of occurrence
4. ANALYSIS AND RESULT
From the data collected, it is seen that total of 959
accidents have occurred during the year 2010-2014.
related injuries have taken recorded. Figure4 shows a
trend in number of accidents occurring in Coimbatore
city, there is an urgent need to carry out proper traffic
management studies in order to regulate the traffic.
Figure 3 Distribution of Type of Accidents
From the figure it can be seen that the number of
accidents in the north and South zone are high.

Figure 2 Methodology Layout

Figure 4 Yearly Distributions of Traffic
3.4 Map scanning
Accidents
The Survey of India topographical map at a sale of
Fig-4 shows the yearly trends of traffic accidents in
1:1, 50,000 were scanned as the raster input.
Coimbatore City from 2010 to 2014. Total 94 fatal
3.5 Geo referencing
accidents with an average of 400 accidents per year
Scanned maps usually do not contain information as
and non-fatal 518 accidents with an average of 959
to where the area represented on the map fits on the
accidents per year are observed. Table1 shows the
surface of the earth. To establish the relationship
distribution of different types of accidents in
between an image co ordinate system and a map(x, y)
Coimbatore city during 2010-2014.
coordinate system geo referencing the raster data has
Table 1 Total Accident during 2010-2014
to be done.
Traffic zones in Fatal Non- Injured Total
3.6 Digitizing Coimbatore city Fatal
Digitizing is the process of encoding the geographic Central Zone 4 65 56 125
features in digital form as x, y co ordinates. It was East Zone 19 99 80 198
carried out to create spatial data from existing hard West Zone 26 107 56 189
copy maps and documents. In the Present work the North Zone 19 119 94 232
geo referenced raster image of Coimbatore district is South Zone 26 128 61 215
digitized using Arc GIS10.1. This type of digitization 4.1 Identification of Black Spot
is called onscreen digitization. Road network of the A Location whether link or node that experiences
study area was digitized as line features. Accident abnormal Crash frequencies, rates is considered as an
locations are digitized as point features. The above Accident Black Spot. The technique that is used the
spatial data were organized in a personal geo study to identify hazardous Locations is known as the
database and feature class. The exact location of Critical Crash Rate Factor Method. Since traffic
accidents was identified by using measure tool in crashes are random occurrences and can be
ArcGIS10.1. By using the measure tool, the spatial considered as Rare Events it is not possible to
location of a particular accident can be marked by identify hazardous locations simply on the basis of
knowing its distance from a particular station. the number of crashes. Rather, the critical rate
3.7 Assigning attributes method incorporates the traffic volume to determine
All vector data (i.e. line, polygon, point features) will if the crash rate at a particular location is significantly
contain separate attribute tables. Here each Road is higher than the average for the type of facility. If the
labeled with its corresponding name with the help of crash rate of a particular location is significantly
the city map obtained from the police station. higher than the average crash rate for other locations
Similarly the accident location attribute tables were in the jurisdiction having similar characteristics, the
created contains the following data. location is classified as an Accident Black Spot.
1. Peak or Non Peak Hour
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 Anitha Selvasofia.S.D et al., International Journal of Advanced Engineering Technology E-ISSN 0976-3945
Figure 5 Location of Accident Hot spot
4.2 Optimized routes from accident spots
Network analysis in geographic information system
(GIS) provides good decision support for users
concerned in shortest or optimal route, finding the
nearest facility and determines the service area.
Searching optimal path is an essential analysis
function in GIS. It is also one of the most important
functions in GIS network analysis. The place of
accident is related to the nearest landmark in the road
network.
Figure 6 Alternate Route
From the present study, following conclusions have
been drawn:
The suggestions for improvement of Ram krishna
Mill zone is given below:
1. Increase the number of lanes from two lanes
to four lanes.
2. Provide footpath on both the sides of the
road for the safety of pedestrians.
3. Provide adequate drainages.
4. Provide separate bus bays for avoiding delay
of other vehicles at the bus stops.
5. Take suitable enforcement measures to
reduce the speed of vehicles.
6. Remove or repair potholes for the safety
of road users.
Figure 7 Graph Showing the Accident Variation
of type of vehicles
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The suggestions for improvement of singanallur
zone is given below:
1. Increase the width of the median to 3m.
2. Reduce the number of U – turns and
provide adequate length and width for
median openings.
3. Provide footpath on both the sides of the
road for the safety of pedestrians.
4. Provide adequate drainages.
5. Take suitable enforcement measures to
reduce the speed of vehicles.
6. Some sign boards are hidden due to trees,
make it visible to the drivers.
7. Provide separate bus bays for avoiding delay
of other vehicles at the bus stops.
8. Provide necessary sign boards at T –
junctions.
The suggestions for improvement of Thudiyalur zone
is given below:
 Change the alignment of road on horizontal
curves to enhance adequate sight distance.
 Remove the illegal constructions from the
road.
 Provide necessary road signs and markings.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The study was an attempt to find out the most
vulnerable accident locations or the black spots in
Coimbatore districts making use of GIS. The
Weighted Severity Index Method (WSI) method was
used to rank the accident locations. Based on the
analysis, Ramkrishna Mill, singanallur zone,
Thudiyalur zone were identified as most vulnerable
accident locations and suggested some possible
alternative or corrective measures to improve the
transportation system in these locations, from which
the decision maker can select suitable measure for the
location. The method is found to be effective in
identifying the black spots, provided sufficient
secondary data is available
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