Investigation Of The Causes Of Road Traffic Crashes And Remedial Measures On Debre Markos Bahir Dar Road Segment

Road traffic crashes occur as a result of several factors associated with the traffic system, namely: road users, road environment and vehicles. These factors have their own impact for crash. Ethiopian federal police unpublished report showed that 95% of all crashes involved human factors, 8% accounted for vehicle factors, and the rest 29% were associated with road environments. Even if Ethiopia has low road network density and vehicle ownership, the crash rate records are relatively high.rnThe objective of this study is identifying blackspot sections and investigating the major causes of road traffic crashes with engineering remedial measures. The research is done by reviewing previous literature, collecting data on the road segment like traffic crash data, road and traffic data.rnDuring the study period from July 2013-June 2018 a total number of 1873 reported crashes were collected out of which 741 were fatal crashes, 307 were serious injuries, 197 were slight injuries and 628 were property damages only. The characteristics of crashes in the study area were tabulated and analyzed by descriptive statistics and Multinomial Logistics Regression method to identify blackspot sections and investigating significant factors which affect the severity of crashes.rnBy distributing the collected traffic crash data on the study area, 40 divided segments were created and statistical analysis was carried out to identify blackspot sections and 16 segments are selected as blackspot.rnDuring observation of this blackspot sections, the major causes of crashes were identified to be unavailability of proper pedestrian facilities, improper use of roadways by pedestrian, drivers‟ fatigue and violation of traffic rules and regulation including violation of speed limit. In spite of this, narrow lane width of bridges, inadequate sight distance, poor geometric design of curves, and deteriorated pavement conditions and absence of sufficient traffic signs and road markings. In addition, from the descriptive analysis the major causes of crash which are driver‟s error like violation of speed limit, ignorance of pedestrian priority, drive with leaving right, pedestrian error, road defects and vehicle defect.rnOn the other hand, the results of Multinomial Logistics Regression analysis indicates that, there were many variables which have a significant effect on fatal crash severity; such as, driver‟s age between 18-30 years, driving experience of below 1 year, collision type of pedestrian crash and others. On the other hand, driver‟s age below 18 years, bicycle vehicle type, rollover collision type, out of rural village land use and others have insignificant effect on fatal crash type. Therefore, the variables that were found those factors contribute to crashes severity were age of drivers, driving experience, vehicle type, collision type, land use characteristics and roadway alignment features.rnFinally, engineering measures are recommended to reduce the number of road crashes at identified blackspots and other sections.

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