Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research

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Research Article

Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh
S.M.S. Mahmud1,2,*, Luis Ferreira1, M.S. Hoque3, A. Tavassoli1, N. Islam3
1
School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia
2
Accident Research Institute (ARI), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
2
Department Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh
*Corresponding author. Tel.: 61469911070; Fax: 61733654599; Email: smsohelmahmud@gmail.com, s.mahmud2@uq.edu.au (SMS Mahmud).

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT HIGHLIGHTS

• Road safety problems of Jamuna Bridge and its approach roads are
investigated.
• Traffic operational and behavioural characteristics are analyzed.
• Hazardous Road Locations (HRL) are identified.
• Measures for improving the likelihood of accidents are suggested.
• Application of surrogate safety measures as an alternative analysis approach
is proposed.

KEYWORDS ABSTRACT

Road safety According to recent statistics, more than 150 accidents and 440 casualties are
Driver behaviour happening per year on the 39 km road section of Jamuna Bridge and its
Special dataset approach roads, a major highway section in Bangladesh. Such statistics demand
Observational technique special attention for analysis, investigation, and treatment. This study presents
Accident the results of a comprehensive study on the safety problems of that highway
Hazardous spots section. The study used a special dataset recorded by the road operator for
accident analysis and characteristics evaluation. Different aspects of traffic
ARTICLE HISTORY operational and behavioural characteristics are also discussed using onsite
observational survey and video analysis. The analysis shows that the accidents
JACEPR-2018003 are highly clustered at a few sites with the significant involvement of heavy
Received 30 April 2018 vehicles, particularly trucks and buses. A total of 15 such locations are
Received revision 21 June 2018 identified and considered to be hazardous. It is expected that the outcome of
Accepted 5 August 2018 this research will be helpful not only to improve the safety aspects of the study
Available online 14 November 2018 section; but also to understand the way of accidents happening at the high
Volume: 7, Issue: December 2018 standard roadway facilities. The application of the new analyses approaches
(30 December 2018) will be useful in identifying cost-effective safety measures relating to the
aspects of the road environment and driver behaviour, thereby reducing the
likelihood of accidents.
© 2018 Ababil Publishers. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the aspects including engineering, operational and behavioural

The Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (JMB) also known as
Bangabandhu Bridge is the longest bridge (4.8 km) in
Bangladesh [1] linking east and west parts of the country
playing a significant role in accelerating overall economic
development through establishing a direct link and eliminating
the perennial bottleneck of mobility and economic exchange
between the two parts.
The frequent occurrence of road accidents and injuries on
this corridor since its opening is a serious concern. In recent
years, an accident is happening on average every two days on
this 39 km road segment including bridge and its approach
roads.
It is imperative to conduct a comprehensive study on the
analysis and investigation of road accidents comprising all of
facets of users. It is also important to determine the causative
factors for setting up appropriate programs to reduce accident
and maintain an acceptable level of safety. Moreover, with the
constant increase of exposure of traffic, road and roadside
environment is also changing.
These dynamic changes are influencing the behaviour of
road users. Accident patterns and accidents prone locations are
shifting. As a result, the likelihood of accidents is increasing in
different new locations. Therefore, up to date analysis is needed
using a recent dataset. However, there are very few studies in
literature, which have dealt with the recent trends of safety
problem and user behavioural issues of these highway sections.
Some studies provided limited and even specific analysis on
the traffic flow pattern using the toll plaza data. Rahman [2]
performed a study on vehicular flow pattern on JMB access

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Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research, 7:2-8, 2018
Mahmud et al./ Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh 3

road project. This study provided a preliminary idea on the
traffic flow pattern of Jamuna access road. Zaman [3] studied
traffic flow characteristics and modelling for estimation of
Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) in selected rural
highways in Bangladesh including Jamuna bridge approach
roads.
Ullah et al. [4] presented a comparative study on the traffic
growth factors in three major highways of Bangladesh. This
study used traffic flow data from 2006 to 2009, collected from
computerized toll plaza and tried to show the trend of traffic
growth rate in different highways of Bangladesh including
Jamuna bridge and its access roads.
A limited number of safety related studies have been taken
place since the inception of JMB in 1998. Mustafa [5]
conducted a study of accident patterns on JMB and its approach
roads using data for three years ending March 2002. A total of
572 accidents were analyzed but due to missing of a particular
number of data for a specific time, conclusive findings and
recommendations could not be made.
Subsequently, a brief analysis of safety problems at JMB
and approaches are highlighted. This is followed by the
identification of most hazardous road locations. Finally, the
paper concluded with the summary of the findings followed by
some recommendations for safety improvement strategies. The
avenues for further research are also put forwarded at the end of
this paper.
2. Traffic flow and operational characteristics
2.1 Traffic flow
In recent year, the average traffic flow per year has been
more than 4 million vehicles on this corridor with a growth rate
of 11% per year (Jamuna bridge toll plaza data, 2017). If the
current trend continues, in 2020, the total traffic flow will be
more than 7 million, which is almost 86 percent higher than the
initial projection (The initial forecasting number of traffic is
taken from the Jamuna bridge project study report; Phase II
study. For further details, please see Islam [6]).

Islam [6] investigated of road accidents on the JMB and its

approach roads. This study attempted to analyze and investigate
some most hazardous locations of this corridor and provided
several site-specific recommendations.

This study used accident data collected and recorded by

Jamuna Bridge Maintenance Corporation, known as JOMAC
during the period of 01 Jan 1999 to 31 Mar 2004. Using that
database, an analysis has been made by Hoque and Hasan [7] to
establish the contribution of vehicular defects in road traffic
accidents in Bangladesh. This study was limited to investigating
the involvement of vehicle factors in accident events. Fig. 1 Forecasted (initial and adjusted) and actual traffic flow.

Hoque et al. [1] used same approach as Islam [6] and

analyzed accident data from 2004 to 2006. No other studies
have been reported on the traffic safety problems of JMB and its
approach roads. Moreover, no study has been found on the
behavioural aspects of road users in the likelihood of accidents,
which is one of the key aspects of this study.

This paper reports on findings of a comprehensive study on

safety problems of Jamuna Bridge and its approach roads, using
both primary and secondary data. Secondary data was collected
from different sources, including Bangladesh Bridge Authority
(BBA), Bangladesh Police and Accident Research Institute
(ARI), BUET. Accident analysis has been made using a special
dataset recorded by the bridge maintenance operator. Fig. 2 Traffic composition (Source: Personal communication
Operational and behavioural characteristics have been analyzed with the JMB Toll Plaza Authority, 2017).
using observational technique including on-site field
observation and video analysis. Fig. 1 provides the trend of traffic forecasted with zero toll
(toll free) and actual flow of traffic. It also provides the adjusted
The paper is organized as follows. Firstly, a summary of projection (time series analysis using second-order polynomial
previous related studies is provided. Environmental and regression model) if the current trend continues.
geometric configuration of the bridge and its approach roads are
then discussed. This is followed by a discussion on traffic 2.2 Traffic composition
operational characteristics and other road users’ behaviour.
According to the BBA official record, the overall

Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research, 7:2-8, 2018

Mahmud et al./ Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh 4

That includes three and two-wheelers including informal

Table 1 Percent of overweight vehicles.
para-transit (human hauler), rickshaw, motorcycles and
L M Overweight bicycles, which comprises 14 of overall daytime traffic (Fig. 3).
Large
Direction Truck Truck as % of total There are also significant walking and crossing activities of
Bus (%)
(%) (%) vehicle pedestrians highlighting the heterogeneity of traffic
East-West 7 34 71 24 composition.
West-East 13 51 76 39
2.3 Traffic speed profile
Source: Personal communication with the Bangladesh
Bridge Authority (BBA), 2017.
The posted and design speed limit of this highway section
are 80 and 85 kmph respectively. However, it was found that
compositions of vehicles are: truck (50%) including small the average speed of large buses and passenger cars are higher
(11%), medium (38%) and large truck (1%) followed by bus than both the posted speed limit and the design speed (85 kmph)
(32%), light vehicles (16%) and motorcycle (2%) (Fig. 2). of the highway. The profile of the speed of different types of
vehicles is presented in
Fig. 4.

In consideration of 85th percentile speed, most of the

vehicles were found to be exceeding the legal safe speed limit
(80 kmph) posted on the regulatory sign. Around 90 percent of
cars violated the speed limit, followed by Large Bus (78%),
Pickup/Jeep (54%), and Micro Bus (50%). This over speeding
behaviour is directly related with the severer safety problem of
this roadway corridor.

2.4 Degree of overloading

Two weigh-in-motion (WIM) and static weigh bridge

Fig. 3 Daytime traffic composition (Source: Field survey under
devices are installed near the toll plaza on both sides of the
the supervision of authors, 2017).
bridge. Weight data are recorded for two directional ways i.e.
E-W and W-E. Table 1 provides the percent of overweigh
vehicle is each direction. A significant number of overloaded
large vehicles, particularly medium truck (more than 70%
among the violator) are driving on this road.

This overloading behaviour is not only damaging the road

infrastructure including bridges and culverts but also creating
safety hazards for all road users. West to East flows (towards
the capital city), are more over-weighted than the East-West
directional vehicles.

2.5 Compliance with the traffic signs and markings

Fig. 4 Speed (kmph) profile of different type of vehicles.
There is a significant lack of drivers’ knowledge and
understanding on safety devices as traffic sign and marking.
Light vehicles include car, jeep, pickup and microbus.
Most of the drivers usually do not comply with the existing
However, from the onsite field study, it is found that there are
signs and marking and thus they overtake even in the restricted
significant numbers of local traffics operating on this highway
areas, such as immediately before sharp bends or intersection
section, particularly at daytime.
and causing serious safety hazardous.
Table 2 BBA and Police record of crashes.
Accidents % of accident Casualties % of causalities
Year recorded by recorded by
BBA Police BBA Police
Police Police
2011 156 20 13% 481 49 10%
2012 144 24 17% 433 50 12%
2013 172 8 5% 395 14 4%
Total 472 52 11% 1309 113 9%
Source: Personal communication with the BBA, 2017 and Bangladesh Police, 2017.

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Mahmud et al./ Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh 5

Table 3 Accidents and casualties statistics in Jamuna bridge and approach roads.
Accidents Casualties
Year
Fatal Grievous Minor PDO* Total Fatal Grievous Minor Total
2011 34 65 19 38 156 55 235 191
481
2012 31 69 10 34 144 44 229 160
433
2013 36 65 18 53 172 43 220 132
395
2014 49 52 12 35 148 63 190 109
362
2015 35 72 14 56 177 85 330 169
584
2016 43 43 5 60 151 61 223 103
387
Total 228 366 78 276 948 351 1427 864
2642
Source: Personal communication with the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), 2017.
*PDO: Property Damage Only.

2.6 Behaviour of other road users 3. Safety problems at JMB and approaches

Corner obstruction: The corner of the access point is
mostly occupied by local users and parked three wheelers
including the shoulder as well as part of the carriageway of the
main road. This occupancy creates a vision obstruction,
particularly when traffic from access roads merges into the
mainstream.
On road loading & unloading: For ensuring smooth
functioning of loading and unloading of persons and goods,
bus-lay-bys were constructed on both the sides of the road.
However, most of the vehicles are stopping on the shoulder of
the road at junctions creating temporary bottleneck and
becoming the reason of accident.
The Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) maintains a
separate accident database on a regular basis solely for this
roadway segment. Initial analysis revealed that this data is more
reliable than that of police records, in terms of number of
accidents, depth of reporting, consistency and accuracy [1].
Table 2 provides a comparative picture between BBA
report and police-reported accident data. The extent of
underreporting of police reported database (police reports on an
average 11% and 9% only in terms of accidents and casualties
respectively in compare to BBA data) is evident here.
3.1 Total accidents and casualties

Conflicting use of roadside: Unlike other highway
corridors in Bangladesh, using of roadway space other than
traffic movement such as drying of crops, stacking of household
items, keeping animal near the shoulder etc. is not a common
issue in this highway corridor though gradually it is happening
and worsening.
Random pedestrian crossing: Random indiscriminate
pedestrian crossing is also a common road users’ behaviour,
particularly on the few locations where pedestrian concentration
is very high. These random crossing of the road by pedestrians
often creates surprise situation for the drivers of high speed
vehicles.
There were 351 fatalities and 2291 injuries in 948 accidents
during the period of 2011-2016 and average of nearly 59 deaths
in about 158 accidents yearly in this 39 km roadway section
(Table 3). This number and rate of crashes and resulting deaths
is much higher when compared with the international statistics
[8]. It is also much higher than the situation of overall deaths on
other national and regional highways in Bangladesh.
3.2 Vehicular involvements
Vehicular involvements in accidents are shown in Table 4.
Trucks (large and small), are not only the highest contributors to
road traffic accidents (61%), but also their involvement is
disproportionately higher compared with their share in traffic
flow (49%).

Table 4 Traffic flow and involvement in road accidents.

Percent of Traffic Percent in Accident Accident per Billion
Vehicle Type Involvement Index
Flow Involvement Vehicle Km
Truck 49 61 1.23 175
Bus 32 20 0.63 89
Light Vehicle 16 13 0.80 113
Motorcycle 2 2 1.07 152
Other na 4 na na
Total 100 100 1.00 142

Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research, 7:2-8, 2018

Mahmud et al./ Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh 6

Fig. 5 Hourly distribution of accidents, fatalities, casualties and traffic flow.

Fig. 6 Hourly distribution of Trucks and Buses involvement in accidents and flow (Adapted from Hoque et al. [1]).

Fig. 7 Geographic distribution of accidents locations.

Trucks have also higher rate of accidents in terms of veh-km). Involvement of buses and light vehicles are almost the
accident per billion veh-km (175 accidents involvement per same, in terms of involvement index and per km rate which is
billion veh-km compared to average of 142 accidents per billion below the average.

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Mahmud et al./ Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh 7

Table 5 Hazardous locations/Priority selected locations.

Location Length Vehicular
Section (km chainage) (km) Accid Fatal Major Minor Involvement Acc./
Casualties
No. ents ities Injuries Injuries km
From To Truck Bus
4 6.00 6.30 0.50 11 2 18 16 36 5 6 22
5 7.90 8.40 0.70 15 9 19 21 49 14 6 21
7 12.40 13.20 1.00 26 10 30 21 61 24 2 26
8 13.40 14.10 0.90 21 6 31 18 55 21 6 23
9 21.70 22.20 0.70 15 3 21 20 44 10 6 21
10 25.50 26.20 0.90 26 9 36 33 78 17 10 29

3.3 Temporal characteristics of accidents 4.2 Most hazardous spots/locations

Fig. 5 shows the hourly traffic flow and distribution of
accidents, fatalities and casualties at the bridge and bridge
approaches in percent with respect to time of day. Accidents are
over-involved in the morning with respect to the level of traffic
flow. The high incidence of casualties during 04:00-07:00 hours
was mainly attributed due to accidents involving many
casualties.
In terms of vehicular involvement in accidents, trucks
predominated in the late night hours and the early morning
hours. In contrast, buses are disproportionately more involved
during afternoon and evening periods (during 12:00-18:00)
(Fig. 6).
3.4 Predominant accident types
Further analysis was also made of the locations having
frequent accidents (10 or more) and/or fatalities (5 or more). A
total of 15 such locations are identified and considered to be
hazardous. These 15 hazardous locations represent only 11.42
km (30%) of the total study segments (38 km) and account for
245 (52%) accidents and 87 (61%) fatalities.
The study also analyses ‘a three years set’ of 5 years back
data, 2004 to 2006 and following the same process, the most
accident-prone locations or sections are identified. Comparing
these two findings, it is found that some sections shifted a little
in terms of crash occurrence but couple of sections remained
same, such as, section km chainage 6 to 6.3 ; 7.9 to 8.40; 12.40
to 13.20; 13.40 to 14.10; 21.70 to 22.20 and 25.50 to 26.20
(Table 5).

Accident types have been analyzed according to the
Definition of Coding Accidents (DCA). Head on collisions are
the leading cause of fatalities, accounting for nearly 42% of all
fatalities with aggressive overtaking might be the cause in this
two-lane bi-directional highway.
This implies that those sections (section 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10)
are accident prone or hazardous historically, i.e. those are
hazardous not only now but also were hazardous before. Further
investigation is needed on priority basis in these selected
sections.

Overturn on road (705) is the second leading cause of 5. Conclusions

fatalities on this road, accounting form 14% of all fatalities,
followed by hit pedestrian (crossing near side (001), far side
(003) and on road standing (004)) 11%, off-carriageway, hit
objects (DCA 704 & 703) 7%. Further research is needed to
identify the causative factors and to select appropriate remedial
measures for improving overall safety condition with priority
consideration of these few specific accident types.
4. Identification of hazardous road locations
4.1 Accidents distribution
Identification of high accident frequency sites and
hazardous location depends critically upon the information
about the precise location of accidents (Hoque et al., [1]).
Geographic Information System (GIS) based accident database
was prepared in which each accident location was assigned a
unique chainage value with respect to the starting point of the
east approach road.
Accident location was coded with a precision of 0.01 km.
Fig. 7 shows the geographic distribution of accidents which are
clustered very highly at certain locations.
About 39 km road was taken as an experiment site shows
significantly higher crash rates than the national average.
During the period of 2011-2016, an average of nearly 59 deaths
happened in 158 accidents yearly. Trucks are not only the
highest contributors to road traffic accidents (61%), but also
their involvement is disproportionately higher compared with
their share in traffic flow (50%). Head-on collision is the
leading cause of fatalities, accounting for nearly 42% of all
fatalities. Further analysis was also made of the locations
having frequent accidents (10 or more) and/or fatalities (5 or
more). A total of 15 such locations are identified and considered
to be hazardous.
It is expected that the outcome of this research will be
helpful not only to improve the safety aspects of the Jamuna
bridge access roads; but would also help to understand the way
accidents are happening at the high standard roadway facilities.
Moreover, the findings of these investigations would be highly
beneficial for engineers to update the design specifications of
high-speed roads in Bangladesh, such as monitoring strategies
of driving behaviour, setting up appropriate speed limit and its
control, consideration of vehicle loading pattern, compliance

Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research, 7:2-8, 2018

Mahmud et al./ Analysis of road safety related data from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh
with the traffic rules and regulation and consideration of
pedestrian requirement. Practicing traffic engineers would also
be enlightened to devise safety strategies while constructing
new roads or improving existing roadway facilities, for
instance, traffic forecasting or expected number of traffic, traffic
growth rate, local exposure and roadside hazards. However,
there is still a lack of thorough understanding about the location
specific problems, based on which appropriate remedial
measures could be developed. More systematic studies and
investigations are needed of locations identified as
accident-prone.
Moreover, the presented results are mainly based on
historical accident records. This is a reactive and
time-consuming approach. Accident records do not provide
information on the behaviour of drivers and other users. The
detailed chain of events before and after the accident is also
difficult to reconstruct from such data. Current diagnosing of
traffic safety problems using Traffic Conflict Techniques
(TCTs) is a widely accepted reactive approach, which does not
depend on accident records. It analyses on time vehicle
movement using a traffic surveillance system and it can
overcome many drawbacks related to traditional accident
databased safety evaluation. It can also identify behavioural and
other causative factors more effectively. The application of such
new approaches in this study section may lead to identifying
cost-effective safety measures relating to aspects of the road
environment, behavioural and vehicle issues, thereby reducing
safety risk.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the graduate school of the
University of Queensland and Transport division, School of
To cite this article: Mahmud SMS, Ferreira L, Hoque MS, Tavassoli A, Islam N. Analysis of road safety related data
from a key section of a highway in Bangladesh. Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research
2018;7:2-8.
To link this article: http://ababilpub.com/download/jacepr7-2/
Journal of Advanced Civil Engineering Practice and Research, 7:2-8, 2018
8
Civil engineering of the same university for their support to
collect data from Bangladesh.
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