Investigation of the Effect of Traffic Parameters on Road Hazard Using Classification Tree Model

This paper presents a method for the identification of hazardous situations on the freeways. For this study, about 18 km long section of Eastern Freeway in Melbourne, Australia was selected as a test bed. Three categories of data i.e. traffic, weather and accident record data were used for the analysis and modelling. In developing the crash risk probability model, classification tree based model was developed in this study. In formulating the models, it was found that weather conditions did not have significant impact on accident occurrence so the classification tree was built using two traffic indices; traffic flow and vehicle speed only. The formulated classification tree is able to identify the possible hazard and non-hazard situations on freeway. The outcome of the study will aid the hazard mitigation strategies.