759 Road lighting and safety: a pilot study of Arthabaska region

Mustafa Aldulaimi, Luis AmadorJimenez
2016 Injury Prevention  
We investigate the specification of roadway lighting for safety to understand the elements needed in statistical analysis of road collisions during night time. Several goals were targeted. First, which type of response is best, or whether both responses should be used. Second, which indicator of lighting should we favor? Third, which other factors should be included in the analysis and fourth, how effective is lighting in reducing nigh-time collision. The case study comprised illuminance and
more » ... inance measurements collected for the Arthabaska region in Quebec, along with available operational and geometric variables expected to explain roadway collisions. A zero-inflated negativebinomial model was used to analyze the impact of predictors on collision frequency and severity using classical maximum likelihood validated by a Full Bayesian regression. It was found that collision severity is best, resulting in more factors being significant in the expected sense of contribution. Luminance was the best indicator for road lighting. A correlation matrix aided in the identification of linearly dependencies between factors and the response or other factors. The last goal was investigated by comparing daytime with night-time collision analysis. The night time analysis included luminance and glare. The results were very close between day and night, with luminance proving to be an effective countermeasure for night collisions. A three-time difference on the coefficient for traffic volume was found. The use of a dummy variable related to standard levels of illumination is presented and will be key in future research for the estimation of effective levels of lighting.
doi:10.1136/injuryprev-2016-042156.759 fatcat:v5cx55fa3jbopj7jwjxj4nwfwe