Injury Severity Analysis Of Crashes In The Affected Area Of Work Zone

With the continuous growth of road mileage in China and the large number of roads constructed in the early,reconstruction and maintenance are needed.The work zone has become an important part of the transportation infrastructure.The existence of work zone,however,adversely affects not only the traffic in the activity areas,but also outside area of those.The injury severity of crash show difference,since the characteristics of traffic flow in the affected area of work zone is changed.Meanwhile,the crash injury severity in the periphery of activity area is even more serious than that of the work zone.To the best knowledge,there is no study specifically focused on the crash in the affected area of work zone.In this paper,the crash data and work zone information(2012)released by Michigan department of transportation,United States were collected for the injury severity analysis.By the means of the association and match of two data resources(crash and work zone),and the crashes occurring in the periphery of activity area were excavated and the distance between crash location and activity area was calculated.On this basis,the injury severity in the periphery of activity area and the variables in the database were analyzed by descriptive statistical analysis method.Then,through cross-tabulation,the proportion of each factor under different severity levels was initially obtained,and hierarchical definitions were made.Subsequently,the generalized additive model was employed to study the spatial characteristics of injury severity in road construction-affected areas,as well as the significantly contributing factors and their influence laws.The results showed that the construction activities had significant impacts on the injury severities in the range of 3 km of the periphery of activity area,and the injury severity tended to be more severe with the increasing distance in the area.At the same time,the regression results also indicated that the injury severities were impacted by a number of factors,such as weekend,evening,unlighted darkness,man,speed limit greater than 40 mph,involving three cars,overloading vehicles,peak hours,collector,local,alcohol,action prior to crash(turning right,changing lanes,backing,slowing,avoiding)and hazardous actions(speeding,failed to yield,reckless driving,careless driving,disobeying traffic control devices,failing to stop in assure clear distance,improper lane using,improper backing,drove wrong way,drove left of center).Then the influence rules and impact mechanism were analyzed.Finally,according to the findings,several suggestions and measures were put forward for the improvement from the aspects of engineering technology,law enforcement,education and initiative.