Csaba Koren

Long-Term Safety Trends as a Function of Vehicle Ownership in 26 Countries

The objective of this paper was to model the evolution of road safety as a function of motorization level. The authors completed a country-level as well as a time-dependent analysis focusing on countries for which data were available for a long period of time (1965 to 2009). For the statistical analysis, a function describing road safety trends (decline, turning, improvement) was proposed. Two coefficients in the model were estimated for each country and for each year, and their change over time is discussed. The results showed that the shape of the curve changed over time. In some countries, the decrease in the mortality rate became slower over time; however, a greater potential to improve road safety existed in other countries. Possible reasons for the general positive trends in road safety are the continuous improvement in engineering solutions (better infrastructure, safer cars) as well as road users who are better trained and skilled because of education and experience. In addition to the factors mentioned previously, the increased speed by which safety-related information and knowledge are disseminated contributes to the decrease in the differences in safety levels among countries.

Searching possible accident black spot locations with accident analysis and GIS software based on GPS coordinates

There are several methods for the analysis of road accidents in a road network. In Hungary from 2011 GPS coordinates are used to identify the location of personal injury accidents. This method significantly improves the display of locations of accidents on the map, which can be then analyzed using GIS tools. Accident black spots are the most dangerous places in road networks identified by the density of the accidents in the network. One of the analysis methods is the accident density searching. The methods and algorithms used in some software may show differences in relation to one another. The aim of this research is comparing two applications by investigating the local road network in Győr. The analysis was made using the WEB-BAL accident analysis software using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise procedure and the QGIS software using the kernel density estimation method. The former is the official accident database and online software used for accident investigations and the...