Suggestions for Iran Instruction on Identification and Prioritization of the Roads Hot Spots and Accident-Prone Sites

The exuberance of road accident counts and their geographical dispersion in Iran’s road network, makes the hot spot identification (HSID) a controversial duty. Although eachperson killed or injured in an accident is a matter of high importance, due to financial and technical limitations there should be a prioritization process executed and higher priority spots be selected for amendments. Specifically, many spots that are recognized as a hot spot might represent no rational relation to any identified cause(s) and by taking improvement measures, the spot is just transferred to another point. On the other hand, sticking solely to the number of accidents and neglecting the number of fatalities or injuries alongside with their severities, can lead to non-optimal or false identification of a hot spot. This paper aims to present a method for identification and prioritization of hot spot in roads by applying a graphical inference from number of fatalities in accident points as well as inclusion of the number and severity of injuries. The method is applied to a ۳-years accident data of two provinces namely, Qazvin and Kermanshah, and the results are discussed.

Keywords:

Road safety , Hot spot identification , Accident severity