title: Analysis of driver injury severity in single-vehicle crashes on rural and urban roadways.
abstract: This study analyzes driver injury severities for single-vehicle crashes occurring in rural and urban areas using data collected in New Mexico from 2010 to 2011. Nested logit models and mixed logit models are developed in order to account for the correlation between severity categories (No injury, Possible injury, Visible injury, Incapacitating injury and fatality) and individual heterogeneity among drivers. Various factors, such as crash and environment characteristics, geometric features, and driver behavior are examined in this study. Nested logit model and mixed logit model reveal similar results in terms of identifying contributing factors for driver injury severities. In the analysis of urban crashes, only the nested logit model is presented since no random parameter is found in the mixed logit model. The results indicate that significant differences exist between factors contributing to driver injury severity in single-vehicle crashes in rural and urban areas. There are 5 variables found only significant in the rural model and six significant variables identified only in the urban crash model. These findings can help transportation agencies develop effective policies or appropriate strategies to reduce injury severity resulting from single-vehicle crashes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2540 Dole Street Honolulu, HI 96822, United States. Electronic address: wuqiong1034@unm.edu.
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2540 Dole Street Honolulu, HI 96822, United States. Electronic address: guohui@hawaii.edu.
authors.forename: Guohui
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Metropia, Inc., 1790 E.River Rd., Suite 140, Tucson, AZ 85718, United States. Electronic address: xiaoyu.zhu@metropia.com.
authors.forename: Xiaoyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Utah, 110 Central Campus Drive, 2137 MCE, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, United States. Electronic address: cathy.liu@utah.edu.
authors.forename: Xiaoyue Cathy
authors.initials: XC
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Mexico, 210 University Blvd NE Albuquerque, NM 87106, United States. Electronic address: tarefder@unm.edu.
authors.forename: Rafiqul
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tarefder
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001334:Automobile Driving / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009516:New Mexico; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Driver injury severity; Mixed logit model; Nested logit model; Single-vehicle crashes