CICTP 2019 3366

Intelligent Warning Scheme against Secondary Traffic Accident Based on

Multi-Source Data
Huaizhong Zhu1 and Xiaoguang Yang2

1
The Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Tongji
Univ., Shanghai 201804, China. E-mail: yangxg@tongji.edu.cn
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2
The Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Tongji
Univ., Shanghai 201804, China (corresponding author). E-mail:
yangxg@tongji.edu.cn

Abstract
Traffic accidents have been the main concern in traffic safety improvement
and the research focus of intelligent transportation. An initial traffic accident may
make an area prone to secondary accidents. This paper uses traffic accident data of
Guiyang 2015, with reference to secondary accident judgment standard. The time and
place of secondary accidents are extracted to build an intelligent warning system for
secondary accidents. When a traffic accident occurs, a smartphone is used to upload
the vehicle sensing data of the accident location and the driving direction of the
vehicles. Based on historical traffic accident data, the warning system determines
whether the site is a secondary accident-prone location. Using mobile clients, the
system sends accident warning information to phones in the vehicles between the
warning area and the accident area to prevent secondary accidents. This intelligent
warning system is inexpensive, stable, reliable, and capable of real-time warning.
Keywords: VSD; Smartphone; Secondary accident; Big data; Warning system;
Mobile client.

INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of transportation, traffic congestion and accidents
happen from time to time. Compared with traffic congestion, traffic accidents bring
injury to people and loss of money and material resources. According to the
Statistical Communique of the People’s Republic of China on the 2016 National
Economic and Social Development issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, there
were 194.4 million cars in China in 2016, with road traffic accident death toll at about
40,824 people, an increase of 4,646 compared with 2015. The average death toll is
about 5 people per hour. The global death toll resulting from road traffic accidents is
as much as 1.25 million every year.
In order to improve traffic safety, the state council has listed “traffic
transportation safety and emergency protection” as a priority theme in the National
Outlines for Medium and Long-term Planning for Scientific and Technological
Development (2006-2020). The Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of
Public Security and Ministry of Transport of China jointly developed and launched
the National Science and Technology Plan for Road Safety in 2008. Preventing traffic

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accidents and improving traffic safety has become a national as well as global
strategy.
Road traffic is a dynamic complex system composed of various elements such
as people, vehicle, road and environment. Each element has its own subsystem and
interacts with each other at the same time. Traffic accidents are caused by the
problems of the subsystem itself or the imbalance of interaction between the elements.
In the traffic and transportation system composed of people, vehicles, roads and
environment, where the vehicles, roads and environment are not harmonized with the
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driver’s behavior, then traffic accidents may happen (Zhang et al. 2012). Moreover, in
certain areas, such as the freeway, the first traffic accident is likely to lead to a
secondary accident. Many secondary accidents are more serious and harmful than the
first one (Yang 2002). Therefore, the prevention of traffic accidents, especially the
prevention of secondary accidents, is more important to improve traffic safety and
reduce casualties.
Many achievements have been made in the construction and practice of the
prevention system of secondary accidents both at home and abroad. America has
developed Freeway Incident Management (FIM) (Roper 1990) for its freeways,
which consists of seven parts, including prophase planning, investigation and
evidence collection, reaction time, site management, cleaning time, drivers’
information and resume the traffic time. The aim of FIM is to save lives and property,
as well as to reduce the damage caused by traffic congestion and the possibility of
secondary accidents. In early September of 2000, the British highway authority
implemented the “smart road plan”, which was completed in 2005. The three
components of innovative technology are new changeable-message sign, automated
accident detector and the updating of the fiber-optic transmission network for national
communication. Key technologies include the “automatic retention warning system”
that was installed on 30% of the freeways in 2004 to reduce the accident rate of
vehicles queuing on the upstream of crowded roads. In order to reduce traffic
interference and accidents, more than 200 surveillance cameras were installed on
freeways in 2004 to make them more responsive to traffic accidents and vehicle
failures. In Europe, an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) integrates emergency
management into an advanced traffic management system and corresponding safety
control system. Brazil’s road user assistance system (UIS), Germany’s Allegemeiner
Deutsche Automobil Club (ADAC) and others have all made remarkable benefits
from the improved emergency aid system.
Many achievements have also been made in the prevention theory and
practice of secondary accidents in China. Based on the basic knowledge of freeway
traffic accident and combining with the distribution of traffic accident on freeways,
Xu (Xu 2009) has introduced the risk analysis method to analyze the influence factors
of freeway traffic safety. Through the study on the secondary accident of freeway and
combining with the research on the influence scope, she analyzed how to establish an
efficient secondary warning system. Zheng (2010) has studied how to prevent the
occurrence of secondary accidents via the secondary warning system, with research
focused on the theoretical basis of the secondary warning management system, the
secondary warning index system and the information release of the secondary
warning.

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According to the warning theory “marking alarms condition-seeking the alert

source-analyzing alarm sign-forecasting the degree alarming” and based on the
principle of construction of index system, Li (Li 2014) has constructed the index
system for secondary accident warning and calculated each warning index. She also
studied the method of warning information release and the content of information
release in complex environment. Miao (Miao 2009) has studied the layout method of
the relevant facilities on the freeway accident-prone section, explained the prevention
steps of the secondary accident combined with the practical application, and worked
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out the diversion scheme of freeway traffic accidents. Hu (2004) has studied the
anti-collision warning system for freeway vehicles. Shao (Shao 2005) has designed
the early warning index system for urban road traffic safety, and studied the index
calculation method. He also studied warning index signal diagram and presented
corresponding crisis response, but the technology is not mature yet. Wang (Wang
2007) has studied how to build traffic warning systems and to set up a warning index
of the warning system, providing a theoretical basis for study of warning systems.
These studies have put forward various methods and systems for the
prevention of secondary accidents. Based on modern ITS, Internet of Vehicles and
communication technology, they have also put forward the early warning scheme and
practice of secondary accidents. However, the applicability of the system is not high,
especially with low practicality and convenience for vehicle drivers to prevent the
secondary accidents due to the lack of corresponding warning scheme for the
possibility of secondary accidents for each section, especially for the secondary
accident-prone location, where a timely release of early warning is more important.
This paper aims to establish an intelligent warning system against secondary
accidents based on the historical big data of traffic accidents. When a traffic accident
occurs, the information about the site of the accident and the driving direction of the
vehicles is uploaded via the mobile Internet. Based on the data of historical traffic
accidents, the system determines whether the site is a secondary accident-prone
section. If it is a prone location, the system will send traffic accident information in
time to the upstream vehicle drivers of the accident site (especially the vehicles that
have entered the warning area, merging area, buffer area and accident area of the
traffic accident) and give early warning to prevent secondary accidents.

SPATIAL ZONATION FOR TRAFFIC ACCIDENT SECTIONS AND THE

IDENTIFICATION OF SECONDARY ACCIDENT-PRONE SECTIONS

Spatial zonation for traffic accident sections

When a traffic accident occurs, the road section at the scene of accident is
divided into warning area, merging area, buffer area, accident area, diverging area
and ending area (Zhang et al. 2012). These areas' length are affected by speed limits,
lighting, surfacing, weather etc. as shown in Figure 1:

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Figu
ure 1. Road section zoning at the sccene of trafffic accidentt.
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(1) Warning area.

a Warninng area referrs to the areaa where the drivers get iinformation
of the acccident and ch
hange lanes. Warning siggns should bbe set up in tthe warning
area to innform the drrivers of thee presence oof the accideent site. Thee minimum
length off the warningg area shoulld be 1600 m meters, and 1700 meterrs in severe
weather such as rain, fog, ice and
d snow.
(2) Merging area. Afterr passing th he warning area, the vvehicles willl gradually
change laanes, and thhe average speed
s of vehhicles in this area is loow because
drivers will
w wait for safety spacee to merge. The length of the mergging area is
related to
o the speed of
o vehicles of
o the sectionn and the w
width of the cclosed lane,
which sho ould be 35 meters
m to 635
5 meters.
(3) Buffer arrea. Accordiing to relevaant regulatioons, a warnning sign shoould be set
150m from m the accideent site, and the area froom the warniing sign to tthe accident
site is thee buffer areea. The miniimum lengthh of the buuffer area shhould be 50
meters, annd 100 meteers at night and
a in severee weather suuch as rain, ffog, ice and
snow.
(4) Accident area. The acccident area is the area w where the acccident site is located. It
is generallly in a closeed form, andd its length aand width aree determinedd according
to the speecific trafficc accident. The
T traffic aaccident vehiicles, the paarties to the
accident and
a the scatttered objectss should be iin the accideent area. Thhe minimum
length of the accidentt area should d be 45 meteers.
(5) Divergingg area. Afteer passing through
t the accident arrea, vehicles enter the
diverging
g area where the lanes are no longer closed, and drivers can drive freely
without such
s restricttions. Vehiccle drivers ppassing throough the acccident site
generally complete th he lane chan nge in the diiverging areea, from the lane of the
accident area
a to the no ormal lane.
(6) Ending arrea. At the end
e of the diverging
d areea, the vehicles run norrmally after
lane chan
nge, namely entering
e the ending areaa.
The waarning area,, merging area,
a bufferr area and accident arrea are the
upsstream areass of the accident area, which
w are prrone to secondary trafficc accidents.
Thee warning sy ystem againsst secondary
y accidents pproposed in tthis paper iss for drivers
in these
t four arreas to help them
t preventt secondary accidents.
Ideentification of secondarry traffic accident-pron
ne location
The seccondary traffffic accident (referred too as the secoondary acciddent) is the
acccident caused d by the miistakenly crashing into the accidennt site of thee irrelevant
vehhicle after an
n accident occcurred (Denng et al. 201 3). Based onn the space-time metric

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of the impacted scope/area of traffic accidents, scholars at home and abroad have
proposed many criteria (Moore et al. 2004) (Wang et al. 2016) for judging secondary
traffic accidents. For the convenience of data extraction, the maximum value (2h) of
the time standard is used to judge the secondary accident in this paper. The historical
data used is traffic accident data for the entire year of 2015 of Guiyang city. The
accident-related major field formats are shown in Table 1:
Table 1. Traffic accident data format.
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Time of Accident Accident No.1 No.2 License License

accident location content Driver’s Driver’s plate 1 plate 2
responsibility responsibility

In Table 1, the accident contents are based on penalty regulations of the

Provisions on the Application for and Use of Motor Vehicle Driving Licenses. Based
on such historical traffic accident data, the location and time of the secondary
accident are extracted. The major field formats and data related to secondary
accidents are as shown in Table 2:
Table 2. Secondary accident data.

Time of Accident Accident No.1 No.2 License License

accident location content Driver’s Driver’s plate 1 plate 2
responsibilit responsibilit
y y

2015/2/ Baiyunq Reverse Full None GUI GUI

4 11:30 u responsibilit A93144 A7136B
y

2015/2/ Baiyunq Door Full None GUI GUI

4 12:30 u switchin responsibilit A96R95 G72198
g y

2015/2/ Baiyunq Door Full None GUI GUI

4 13:00 u switchin responsibilit AA481 ANG28
g y 6 1

…… …… …… …… …… …… ……

According to the data specifications, secondary accidents occurred in 42 of

16762 locations in Guiyang city, which is shown in Figure 2.

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600
Secondary accident

500

400

300
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200

100

0
Papima Roundabout,…

Southwest Ring Road, Xiaohe…

Ergezhai

South Changling Road

Kaifa Avenue, Xiaohe

Youzha Street
Southwest Ring Road

Ergezhai, Nanming Distric

Xiaohe Pingqiao

Xiaohe Pingqiao

Wulichong
Southwest Ring Road

Roundabout, Xiaohe District

Baiyun District

Sanqiao

Dayingpo

Changjiang Road, Xiaohe District

Jiefang Road, Nanming Avenue

Huaxi Avenue, Nanming District

Dusi Road
Beijing Road

Shachong Road

Qianlingshan Road
Xintian Avenue
West Beijing Road

Wudang
Huaxi

Bapima

Jiefang Road
Huanghe Road, Xiaohe Distric
Xiaohe

South Jinyang Road

Huaguoyuan

Jinyang

Shijicheng

Shachong Road, Nan ming District

Xiaohe Roundabout
Huaxi Avenue

South Jiaxiu Road

Guihui Avenue
Huaguoyuan, Nanming District

Taiciqiao
Figure 2. Secondary traffic accident-prone locations in Guiyang city (2015).

FUNCTION AND COMPOSITION OF SECONDARY ACCIDENT

INTELLIGENT WARNING SYSTEM

Multi-source data and the composition of the intelligent warning system of

secondary traffic accidents
This warning system consists of the cloud server and the Mobile Client. The
Mobile Client is installed on the vehicle driver’s smartphone, and the Mobile Client
accesses the cloud server through the mobile internet. The mobile internet enables
users to access the Internet via protocols by using mobile terminals such as mobile
phones and laptops. The cloud server is installed on the cloud platform. The cloud
platform is a service platform that provides comprehensive business services for all
types of Internet users. This platform integrates the three core elements of traditional
Internet applications: computing, storage and networking. Since the cloud platform is
built on the service cluster, when one of machines fails, the other machine can take
over the storage and calculation tasks of the faulty machine in real time. Performance
is more stable and can provide the user a common Internet infrastructure service.
Via the cloud server, multi-source data can be obtained; and related historical
databases such as the accident history database, geographical latitude & longitude
data and weather information data can be connected. The geographical latitude &
longitude database includes data on the latitude and longitude of the start and end
points of each road section and the detailed latitude and longitude of the complex
road section. The cloud server provides the information collection service and sends
warnings to the Mobile Client.

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Based on the latitude, longitude, and weather information of the accident site,
this warning system calculates the corresponding latitude and longitude ranges of the
upstream accident area, buffer area, merging area and warning area in the accident
area. The length setting in the buffer area and warning area is related to the weather.
Based on the formula provided by Wikipedia, the distance can be calculated by using
latitudes and longitudes of two points on the road:
Assume that there are two points on the Earth: point A (lonA, latA) and point
B (lonB, latB). The distance d between two points can be calculated based on the
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Haversine formula. The formula is shown in Eq. 1:

d
haversine( ) = haversine(latA-latB)+cos(latA)cos(latB)*havesine(lonA-lonB) (1)
R

Where, R is the radius of the Earth. The function haversine

(x)=sin(x/2)*sin(x/2). Therefore formula for the distance d between point A (lonA,
latA) and point B (lonB, latB) can be derived, as shown in Eq. 2:

d =2R*ar csi n( si n( ( latA-latB)/2)si n( ( latA-latB)/2)+cos(latA)cos(latB)si n( (lonA-lonB)/2)si n( (lonA-lonB)/2)) (2)

In the Eq.2, R is the radius of the Earth and the average value of R is 6,371km.
The lonA and latA are the latitude and longitude of point A, and the lonB and latB are
the latitude and longitude of point B, respectively. Arcsin is an arcsine function.

The main steps for the Mobile Client to obtain latitude and longitude
information in this warning system are as follows:
(1) Get the LocationManager instance and upload the
Context.LOCATION_SERVICE parameter through the getSystemService
method.
(2) Get available location providers such as GPS_PROVIDER,
NETWORK_PROVIDER and PASSIVE_PROVIDER. The first two
above-mentioned position providers are more commonly used.
(3) The Location information is obtained by using the getLastKnownLocation
method of passing the obtained location provider to LocationManager.
(4) Based on the Location information, the latitude and longitude can be obtained
by using the getLongitude and getLatitude methods.
The corresponding part of the code is shown in Figure 3.

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// Obtain the geographic location manager

LocationManager locationM=
(LocationManager) getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE);
// Get all available location providers
List<String> providers = locationM.getProviders(true);
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if (providers.contains(LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER)) {
locationProvider = LocationManager.GPS_PROVIDER;
} else if (providers.contains(LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER)) {
locationProvider = LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER;
} else if (providers.contains(LocationManager.PASSIVE_PROVIDER)) {
locationProvider = LocationManager.PASSIVE_PROVIDER;
} else {
Toast.makeText(this, “No provider”, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
return;
}
Location = locationM.getLastKnownLocation(locationProvider);
double lonA = location.getLongitude();
double latA = location.getLatitude();
Figure 3. Code for Mobile Client to obtain location information.
The codes shown in Figure 3 are the code implementation of the above four
steps, where the sentence beginning with // is a comment statement.

Function introduction of secondary accident intelligent warning system

The Mobile Client function of this warning system is to upload the latitude
and longitude of the accident vehicle and the movement direction of the vehicle
before the accident (determined by the latitude and longitude changes over time) via
the mobile internet in the event of a traffic accident. Mobile Clients used by drivers in
non-traffic accident vehicles will receive warning messages sent by the cloud server
and prompt vehicle drivers. The function of the cloud server of the warning system is
to receive information uploaded by the system Mobile Client such as geographic
latitude and longitude of the traffic accident site and the movement direction of the
vehicle before the accident, intelligently analyze whether the traffic accident is
located in a secondary accident-prone area based on historical data of traffic accidents
and (if yes) send the warning message via the mobile internet to the Mobile Clients of

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vehicles in the upstream area of the traffic accident site. The system flow chart is as
shown in Figure 4:
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Figure 4. Flow chart of secondary accident intelligent warning system

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SYSTEM OPERATION METHOD

When the system runs, the cloud server and each Mobile Client modules are
started separately. The Mobile Client uploads the latitude and longitude of the
accident vehicle and the movement direction of the vehicle before the accident
(determined by the latitude and longitude changes over time) via the mobile internet
to the cloud server in the event of a traffic accident. Then the cloud server receives
information uploaded by the system Mobile Client such as geographic latitude and
longitude of the traffic accident site and the movement direction of the vehicle before
the accident. It intelligently analyzes whether the traffic accident is located in a
secondary accident-prone area based on historical data of traffic accidents, and, if yes,
sends the warning message via the mobile internet to the Mobile Clients of vehicles,
particularly vehicles that have entered the warning area, merging area, buffer area and
accident area in the upstream area of the traffic accident site. The system also
promptly notifies the vehicle driver via smartphone voice broadcast and vibration
functions to drive carefully to avoid secondary accidents.

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CONCLUSION
As described in this paper, the warning system can determine whether each
traffic section belongs to the secondary accident-prone location based on big data of
historical traffic accidents and other multi-source data and build the secondary
accident intelligent warning system for the location that accidents have occurred to
prevent and reduce the occurrence of secondary accidents. The traffic accident data
uploaded by each Mobile Client is stored in the cloud server. These ever increasing
traffic accident data can also be used as historical traffic accident data, so the
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judgment of secondary accident-prone location by the cloud server can be more

accurate. In the future, with the improvement of the secondary accident judgment
standard, the warning of secondary accidents by this warning system will also be
more accurate.
With the expansion of the Internet of Vehicles, this warning system can be
connected with the Internet of Vehicles. In this way, more multi-source data can be
obtained. The judgment and warning of secondary accident can be more accurate and
the occurrence of secondary accidents can be better prevented so as to reduce the loss
of human, financial and material resources.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported by the Key Project of National Natural Science
Foundation of China (61773293).

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