Analysis of Prime Reasons for Night Time Accidents in Public Transport Corporations

Transcription

1 Analyss of Prme Reasons for Nght Tme Accdents n Publc Transport Corporatons P. Ptchpoo 1, D.S. Vncent 2, and S. Rajakarunakaran 3 1 Department of Mechancal Engneerng, P.S.R. Engneerng College, Svakas , Inda. 2 Taml Nadu State Transport Corporaton Ltd., Madura, Taml Nadu, Inda 3 Department of Mechancal Engneerng, Kalasalngam Unversty, Krshnankol , Inda. Emal: drptchpoo@gmal.com Abstract Indan statstcs reveal that more than 60% accdents occur durng nght tme. Poor vsblty, drver s vsual fatgue & performance etc were dentfed as prme factors for more accdents durng nght tme. Vsblty s related to the factors lke glare, brghtness, scattered rght, nsuffcent lght, reflecton of lghts, eyes power to regan ts orgnal vson etc., Durng nght one s judgment wll be poor and can t able to judge other vehcle s speed correctly. To avod poor vsblty, proper desgnng of llumnaton system s stressed. Durng nght, beng seen s an mportant as seeng. Road Geometry wll sometmes mar the vsblty whch may cause accdents. Drver s fatgue s more durng nght snce the drver s dong hs work aganst the nature. And also the eye stran s more durng nght; hence concentraton and thus performance wll be less. Tme of accdent s also havng effect on Nght accdents because of ts nvolvement of fatgue and performance. In addton to that lack of sgn board and nvsblty of sgn board durng nghts wll also cause accdents. Weather plays an mportant role for nght accdents. The atmosphere lke monotony repetton, tredness, psychologcal factors lke euphora, fear s also the causes for nght accdents. A case study s also performed among a group of drvers through a questonnare. As per the results of the questonnare, the prme reasons for nght accdents are dentfed. Also ths paper ams to dentfy the reasons for the accdents and ther weghtage usng FARE (Factor Relatonshp) method. Fnally a comparson s made between the two dfferent approaches. Keywords: Transport Safety, Nght Accdents, Prme Reasons, FARE. 1.0 INTRODUCTİON More than a mllon people are klled and tens mllons are njured each year durng road accdents n the world. The costs are shockng. In 2000, road traffc njures were the nnth leadng cause of dsablty (Peden et al., 2004). Approxmately 60% accdents occur durng nght tme. Our roadways are becomng more crowded, creatng a spectrum of problems rangng from pedestran, bcycle, vehcle occupant, and motorcycle njures to envronmental polluton, nose, and health problems. These are worldwde problems that wll grow more serous as travel and populaton sze ncrease, as socety ages, and as our predctable relance on cars contnues. As motorzaton ncreases n the world, any nvestment to mprove transportaton or to make t safer wll have global mplcatons. But the rates of publc nvestment for road safety reman low. Accdents are not often due to gnorance, but are due to carelessness, thoughtlessness and over confdence. Human, vehcle and envronmental factors play roles n the accdents. (Nlambar et al., 2004). Mohan and Bawa (1985) have done an analyss on road traffc accdents n Delh, Inda. Nght drvng s generally accepted to be more dangerous than daylght

2 Analyss of Prme Reasons for Nght Tme Accdents n Publc Transport Corporatons drvng (Rumar, 1990). Hgh rate of crashes nvolvng pedestrans are happened at nght because vsblty under nght drvng condtons s severely restrcted. Nght drvng tends to be rsker when llumnaton s provded by the vehcle s headlamps, snce the llumnaton avalable s lmted and drvers tend to overrun ther headlamps (Hall, 1983). Some drvers avod drvng durng nghttme due to poor vsblty and the problem wth glare (Knoblauch et al., 1997). Gozas et al. (1997) analysed the factors affectng road safety by conductng a case study n Greek. Vehcle crashes are the leadng cause of accdental death and most of them occur durng nghttme (Blanco et al., 2001). Unlke developed countres, many developng countres have made very lttle progress towards addressng the problems related to accdents. Nonetheless, there are ways to strengthen the reducton of road traffc accdents (Atub, 2012). Statstcs ndcate that over 90 percent of traffc accdent stuatons can be attrbuted to drver errors (Aworem et al, 2009). Road accdents appear to occur regularly at some flash ponts such as where there are sharp bends, potholes and at bad sectons of the hghways. At such ponts over speedng drvers usually fnd t dffcult to control ther vehcles, whch then result to fatal traffc accdents, especally at nght (Atub and Onokala, 2009). Gnevcus (2011) developed a new method of determnng the crtera weghts called FARE, based on the relatonshps between all the crtera descrbng the phenomenon consdered. In the frst stage, the relatonshps between the set of crtera and ther strength and drecton were elcted from experts. Based on the condtons of functonng and the specfc features of the complete set of crtera, the relatons between each crteron of the set and ther drecton are determned analytcally. Fnally the total mpact of each partcular crteron on other crtera of the set whch s nothng but the crtera weghts were determned. The ntenton of ths paper s to dentfy the varous reasons for the accdents, analyze ther nfluence and prortze them usng FARE method. The case study was performed among a group of drvers n a transport corporaton. Fnally the comparsons are made. 2.0 CASE STUDY Taml Nadu, one of the states n Inda, s havng eght transport dvsons satsfyng, the transport need of people. Madura regon s one among the eght dvsons, havng a fleet strength of 1235 vehcles coverng nearly 4 Lakh km/ day and nearly 9 lakh people are usng these vehcles per day. Many of the vehcles run n the rural area and manly through thckly populated resdental area. Among the 14 branches of Madura regon, 98 drvers were selected as sample for the case study. A questonnare was prepared and gven to them. Based on the reply gven by them the man and foremost reasons for nght accdents were categorzed. Eloholma et al. (2006) dentfed the vsual problems, human related problems and other related factors nfluence the nghttme accdents. The sub crtera consdered under the vsual problems of the drver are vson, lght, brghtness, glare, drver s seat desgn, glass, mrror and road geometry. Smlarly under the human related factors, drver s fatgue, drver s performance, concentraton and tme of accdent were taken for study. Influence of alcohol, sgn board and weather are consdered as the other related factor nfluencng for nght tme accdents. The questonnare was prepared based on the forementoned factors. 3.0 RESULT AND DISCUSSION The questonnares were gven to 98 drvers who are workng n the Madura regon of the transport coporaton and ther responses were collected. 3.1 Analyss through questonnare Category-wse reasons for nght accdents are shown n Fg.1. From the Fg. 1, t s evdent that vsual factors are the foremost reason and next comes the human related factors. Fg 1: Reasons for Nght Accedents In gong nto the detals of vsual factors, (Fg.2) glass, mrror & brghtness are the man factors contrbutng more for nght accdents. Recommendatons are gven n ths paper to ncrease vsblty by provdng qualty non reflectable glass, mrror and brghtness of the head lght. In respect of human factors (Fg.3), t s clear from the pe chart that fatgue s the prme reason for nght accdents.

3 Proceedngs of Internatonal Conference on Advances n Industral Engneerng Applcatons (ICAIEA2014) January 6-8, Analyss through FARE In ths paper, FARE method s used to prortze the nfluencng factors for the nghttme accdents. FARE s a new weght determnng method s used to compute the weghts of each crteron. Gnevcus (2011) developed FARE method for determnng the crtera weghts n mult crtera decson makng envronment. Frst the potental mpact of the crtera s determned usng equaton (1). P = S (m - 1) (1) where P Potental of the system s crteron mpact; S Maxmum value of the scale of evaluaton used (Table1); m Number of the system s crtera (For ths paper 16 crtera were consdered). Fg.2: Vsual Factors For that also, recommendatons are gven n ths paper to reduce fatgue of the drvers. Fg.3: Human Factors The contrbuton among the other reasons are gven n Fg.4. Fg.4: Contrbuton of Other Factors S.No. Table 1: Scale of quanttatve evaluaton of nterrelatonshp between the system s crtera Type of the Effect Produced Ratng of the Effect Produced by Interrelatonshp (n ponts) 1 Almost none 1 2 Very Weak 2 3 Weak 3 4 Lower than Average 4 5 Average 5 6 Hgher than average 6 7 Strong 7 8 Very Strong 8 9 Almost absolute 9 10 Absolute 10 For ths problem, the potental mpact of the crtera s found as 150. Next the crtera are ranked by the experts based on the mportance whch s shown n Table 2. Then the relatonshp between the crtera s determned based on the rank usng Table 1. The procedure s as follows: the crteron of a lower rank has the smaller mpact on the crtera havng hgher ranks and, therefore, t should transfer a larger part of ts potental mpact to them. The mpact of the crtera a on the man crteron s determned and then, ths mpact s transformed as follows: a 1 = S ã 1 (2) where, a the mpact of th crteron on the frst man crteron; ã the part of th crteron s potental mpact transferred to the man crteron The total mpact of any crteron, as well as the consstency level of a subset may be determned based on the data provded n the form of matrx. The subset consdered n the matrx s consstent and stable f the total mpact of ts crtera wth a postve sgn s equal to ther total mpact wth a negatve sgn,.e. ther sum s equal to zero (Gnevcus, 2011). Next the total mpact P calculated usng equaton (3).

4 Analyss of Prme Reasons for Nght Tme Accdents n Publc Transport Corporatons P m = =1 Rank a j j Table 2: Crtera Rank Crtera / Factor 1. Fatque (F) 2. Vsblty (V) 3. Lght (L) (3) 4. Drver s performance ( DP) 5. Concentraton (C) 6. Glass (G) 7. Mrror (M) 8. Brghtness (B) 9. Weather (W) 10. Sgn board (S) 11. Tme of accdent (T) 12. Others (O) 13. Drver seat desgn (DSD) 14. Road geometry (RG) 15. Glare (GL) 16 Alcohol (A) After that, the total potental, requred for determnng the crtera weghts, wll be calculated based on the data presented n the frst row of the matrx, thereby makng the fllng of all other rows of the matrx unnecessary. The followng equaton (4) s used for determnng the total potental and s shown n Table 4. P = P 1 m. a 1, (4) where P the total mpact (dependence) of the th crteron. Fnally, the crtera weghts can be determned usng equaton (5). From the rank of the crtera, usng Table 1 the relatonshp between the crtera s determned and gven n Table 3. Table 3: Relatonshp Between the Frst Man Crteron and Other System s Crtera V L B GL DSD G M RG F DP C T A S W O W = P P S j = P1 ma1 + S( m 1) ms( m 1) (5) where P S = Total potental of a set of crtera whch s found usng equaton (6) and P = Actual total mpact of the th crteron of the j system whch s calculated usng equaton (7) Fnally usng the equatons (3) to (5), the weghts of the crtera are determned and tabulated n the Table 5. P S = m. P = ms (m - 1) (6) j P = P P (7) + where P = Total mpact produced by the th crteron of the system or ts total dependence on other crtera. V L B GL DSD G M RG F DP C T A S W O

5 Table 4: Part of the Crteron Potental Impact Transferred to the Frst Man Crteron V L B GL DSD G M RG F DP C T A S W O V L B GL DSD G M RG F DP C T A S W O Table 5: Actual Impact and Weghts of the Crtera Crtera Actual total crtera weghts mpact ( (w ) Vsblty Lght Brghtness Glare Dr. seat desgn Glass Mrror Road geometry Fatque Dr. performance Concentraton Tme of accdent Alcohol Sgn board Weather Others Fg 5: Reasons for Nght Accedents From FARE Method The observatons based on FARE are shown n Fg. 5 to Fg 8.

6 Analyss of Prme Reasons for Nght Tme Accdents n Publc Transport Corporatons The comaproson between the questonnare approach and the FARE approch s show n the Fg. 9. Fg.6: Vsual Factors From FARE Method From Fg. 10, t s clearly understood that there s no change n the order of the prorty usng two dfferent approaches. But a small devaton s noted. Both approaches reveal that the fatgue of the drver s trhe man reason for the nght tme accdents. Fg.7: Human Factors From FARE Method 4.0 CONCLUSİONS As per the results of the questonnare as well as FARE method, the vsual problems are the prme reason for nght accdents. Even though the vsual probles are the major nfluencng factor for nght accdents, the fatgue of the drver s the top most reason for nght accdents. Both conventonal and scentfc approaches gave the same result. Ths study gves the drecton to the transport offcals for the possble reducton of the nght accdents. Based on the output some recommendatons can be gven by the experts. If the recommendatons are followed strctly, then there are great chances of reducng nght accdents. REFERENCES Fg.8: Contrbuton of Other Factors From FARE Method [1] A.O. Atub, Determnants of road traffc accdent occurrences n Lagos state: some lessons for Ngera, Internatonal Journal of Humantes and Socal Scence, Vol. 2 No. 6, 2012, pp [2] A.O. Atub, and P.C. Onokala, Contemporary analyss of varablty n road traffc accdents n Lagos state, Ngera, Journal of Afrcan Geographcal Revew. Vol. 28, 2009, pp [3] D. Mohan and P.S. Bawa, P.S. An analyss of road traffc accdent fataltes n Delh, Inda. Accdent Analyss and Preventon, Vol. 17, 1985, pp [4] J.C. Gozas, E.C.Matsouk, and G.D. Yanns, An analyss of factors affectng road safety: The Greek experence Journal of Transportaton Geography, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1997, pp

7 Proceedngs of Internatonal Conference on Advances n Industral Engneerng Applcatons (ICAIEA2014) January 6-8,2014 [5] J.W. Hall, Pedestrans accdents on rural hghways, Transportaton Research Record, Vol. 904, 1983, pp [6] K. Rumar, Drver requrements and road traffc nformatcs, Transportaton, Vol. 17, 1990, pp [7] M. Blanco, J.M. Hankey, and T.A. Dngus, Detecton and Recognton of Non- Motorsts and Objects Usng New Technologes to Enhance Nght Vson In the proceedngs of the ntellgent transportaton socety of Amerca s eleventh annual meetng and exposton, Mam, USA, [8] M. Eloholma, J. Ketomäk, P. Orrevetelänen and L. Halonen, Vsual performance n nght-tme drvng condtons, Ophthalmc and Physologcal Optcs, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2006, pp [9] M.M. Peden, R. Scurfeld, D.A. Sleet, D. Mohan, A.A. Hyder, E. Jarawan and C. Mathers, World Report on Road Traffc Injury Preventon, Health Organzaton, Geneva, [10] Nlambar Jha, D.K. Srnvasa, Gautam Roy and S. Jagdsh Epdemologcal study of road traffc accdent cases: A study from south Inda, Indan Journal of Communty Medcne, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2004, pp [11] R.L. Knoblauch, M. Ntzburg, and R. Sefert, An nvestgaton of older drver freeway needs and capabltes, (Techncal Report FHWA-RD ). Washngton, DC: U.S. Department of Transportaton, FHWA [12] Romualdas Gnevcus, A new determnng method for the crtera weghts n multcrtera evaluaton, Internatonal Journal of Informaton Technology and Decson Makng, Vol. 10, No. 6, 2011, pp