Analyzing the Relationship Between the Magnitude of the Road Traffic Crashes and Road Network Configuration: A Case of Kegalle, Sri Lanka

抄録

The transportation system provides diverse benefits to the society in terms of mobility, access, and economic growth of a country. Nevertheless, there are negative impacts of the transportation system such as environmental degradation, damage to property, traffic accidents, and loss of life. Road Traffic Crashes (RTCs) are responsible for a substantial fraction of morbidity and mortality and accounts for long-term disabilities. Taking into consideration that, this paper focuses on RTCs, which are recognized as an integral part of sustainable transport policies worldwide. Accordingly, substantial work has been conducted on road accidents base on socio-economic parameters. However, minor attention was made to the road configuration parameters and their impact on the RTCs. In that context, the prime objective of this study is to identify a series of relationships between RTCs and road configuration patterns by using the Space Syntax application. Accordingly, the study utilized three road configuration parameters: I. Choice, II. Connectivity and III. Integration under Local and Global-scale levels. The study selected the A-1 transportation network from Peliyagoda to Kegalle of Sri Lanka as the case study area. The results illustrate a noticeable relationship between RTCs and local level variance of Integration values (r = 0.874, p < .01); Connectivity (r = 0.768, p < .01) and Global Level Choice (r = 0.759, p < .01). Further, the regression analysis denotes that the combination of those three variables is accounted for over R² = 95% of the impact for RTCs.