An Analysis of Factors Influencing Crash Severity
Disciplines
Transportation Engineering
Abstract (300 words maximum)
One of Georgia’s greatest public health safety concerns is the vast number of crashes. Even with many laws for both pedestrians and motorists, Georgia along with 4 other states accounted for 47% of all pedestrian deaths in 2019. Between the years 2018 and 2022, there were nearly 2 million crashes with almost 14,000 of them involving pedestrians. Of those pedestrian crashes, about 1,400 were fatal. In 2020, researchers found that 58% percent of pedestrian crashes in Georgia occurred in Atlanta. Previous researchers studied hot spots and discovered that pedestrian fatalities occur more in urban areas, which correlates with that percentage. The goal of this research is to find which driving factors relate to higher fatalities and injury severities. This was done in hopes that the knowledge would be able to help reduce the number of pedestrian fatalities. This paper utilized crash data from GDOT. Many factors were analyzed, including Weather Conditions, Road Type, Holiday, and Day of the Week. By using the Cross-classification method factors could be identified as having correlation to crashes, or no correlation to crashes. It was found that the Day of the Week did not correlate with the severity of crashes. It was also found that the Weather Conditions, Road Type, and Holidays all have a relationship with pedestrian injury and the severity of those injuries. There lies immense importance in investigating and understanding the factors that contribute to this epidemic, in hopes of creating safer streets for pedestrians.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
SPCEET - Civil and Environmental Engineering
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Sunanda Dissanayake
An Analysis of Factors Influencing Crash Severity
One of Georgia’s greatest public health safety concerns is the vast number of crashes. Even with many laws for both pedestrians and motorists, Georgia along with 4 other states accounted for 47% of all pedestrian deaths in 2019. Between the years 2018 and 2022, there were nearly 2 million crashes with almost 14,000 of them involving pedestrians. Of those pedestrian crashes, about 1,400 were fatal. In 2020, researchers found that 58% percent of pedestrian crashes in Georgia occurred in Atlanta. Previous researchers studied hot spots and discovered that pedestrian fatalities occur more in urban areas, which correlates with that percentage. The goal of this research is to find which driving factors relate to higher fatalities and injury severities. This was done in hopes that the knowledge would be able to help reduce the number of pedestrian fatalities. This paper utilized crash data from GDOT. Many factors were analyzed, including Weather Conditions, Road Type, Holiday, and Day of the Week. By using the Cross-classification method factors could be identified as having correlation to crashes, or no correlation to crashes. It was found that the Day of the Week did not correlate with the severity of crashes. It was also found that the Weather Conditions, Road Type, and Holidays all have a relationship with pedestrian injury and the severity of those injuries. There lies immense importance in investigating and understanding the factors that contribute to this epidemic, in hopes of creating safer streets for pedestrians.