PROCEEDINGS OF 22ND AGM & INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE NIMechE , OSUN 2009.

Malomo B. O, Oladejo K. A, Adio, S. A and Adekoya, L.O . pp 107 - 113

DEVELOPMENT OF A HEURISTIC COMPUTER-BASED MODEL FOR ACCIDENT RATE PREDICTION ON

LAGOS-IBADAN EXPRESSWAY, NIGERIA.

*Malomo B. O, Oladejo K. A, Adio, S. A and Adekoya, L.O

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
babfem@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
An approach to the modeling of accident rates on Lagos-Ibadan expressway with a view
to understanding the relationship between accident-causing phenomena and explanatory
variables involvement is presented in this study. The mathematical formulation of the model
involves the autoregressive analysis of quantitative and qualitative data obtained from archival
sources spanning ten years of accident information (1998-2007) and strategically- designed
questionnaires administered within the driving/passengers’ population respectively. The resulting
relations served as constitutive input parameters in the development of the computer-based
model designed to run in the Matlab software platform in a windows operating system
environment. In its performance, the model elicits the possibility of futuristic projections of
accident rates while reflecting the effects of variations/changes in the characteristics and
properties of the explanatory variables. A correlation is also made with respect to the contribution
of blackspots to perceived accident-occurrence phenomena.

Keywords: Accident rate prediction, explanatory variables, Lagos-Ibadan expressway, model.

.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Roadway safety has been a major concern for the
general public and public agencies since crashes claim
many lives and cause substantial economic losses every
year. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO),
600,000 people die and 15 million are injured in road
accidents each year (Flahaunt, 2004). In the European
Union, a total of 1.2 million accidents occur every year
leading to more than 40,000 fatalities. The associated
economic losses can reach up to 2.5% of GNP (Elvik,
2000). In the United States alone, the annual cost of traffic
crashes is put at $231 billion (Jiaming et al, 2007).
In Nigeria, road traffic accident (RTA) situation
and its attendant ripple effects have aggravated influence
on the economy and a constant threat to the populace as
the statistic over the years is quite staggering. Police
records on interstate crashes have shown that between
1980 and 1989, a total of 98,168 Nigerians had died and
244, 864 had been injured in RTA. As a matter of fact, the
World Bank data record placed Nigeria second only to
Ethiopia as the most hit in terms of traffic accident-related
tragedies amongst the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
This high number of deaths and casualties is increasingly
considered unacceptable. As a result, many countries
have implemented policies to drastically reduce the
magnitude of road fatalities. Although the situation has
improved in the past twenty years (Page, 2001), many
efforts remain to be made.
In Nigeria today, one of the busiest and most traffic
accident-prone is the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
Thousands of casualties and severities are
recorded yearly on this highway. The causes of the
accidents range from poor state of the road to
107
vehicle condition and driver behaviour etc. Attempts
have been made to predict the rates of accident on
this highway albeit with limited success. The
applied concepts were conventional in nature
(Ezenwa, 1986; Ighile, 1990; Olamigoke, 1990;
Ogunsanya and Waziri, 1990). It is however in the
light of this and in consonance with the global trend
in accident analysis that a more flexible approach
for the accurate prediction of accident rates on the
stated highway is proposed in this study. The
objectives explicitly focused on developing a
computerized model for the prediction of accident
rates on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway taking into
account the combined effects of explanatory
accident-causing variables and also to qualitatively
assess the contribution of black spots on the
highway to the frequency of accident occurrences.
It is hoped that this research work will facilitate
the modification of existing and the formulation of
new policies aimed at limiting the carnages and
consequently impart positively on the lot of the
citizenry plying this highway.
2.0 METHODOLOGY
2.1 Study area
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is in the
Southwestern part of Nigeria. The entire length of
the road spans 160km from Lagos State through
Ogun State to Ibadan in Oyo-State. The
Expressway is strategic to the economic growth of
the country since it is the major link in and out of
Lagos which is the commercial nerve-centre of the
country, and therefore crucial to the transportation
22nd International Conference of NIMechE, 2009 – Development Of A Heuristic Computer-Based Model For Accident Rate
Prediction On Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
of agricultural products and finished goods from
manufacturing industries. As at the time of this
investigation, the highway which is a Trunk-A type
i.e. maintained by the Federal Government of
Nigeria is in a dilapidated state with potholes,
cracks, depressions, ruts, honeycombs, patches
etc, featuring at strategic locations generally
referred to as black spots in relation to fatal crashes
on the road.
2.2 Data Collection
Data relating to vehicular crashes were
obtained from primary and secondary sources i.e.
through field surveys, observations and achival
sources. Primary data based on questionnaires
treatment and focal group discussions were used
along with personal interviews held with the Federal
Road Safety Corps (FRSC) officials, the Nigeria
Police, and people who make their livelihood along
the road. The questionnaires were designed to
determine the socio-economic characteristics of the
individual respondent, the causes, distribution of
accidents and the effects of vehicle type on the
occurrence of accidents on the highway.
Questionnaires were administered at random to
users of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway at Motor
parks, toll gates, filling stations along the road.
Upon the visual examination of the highway and
correlation with accident data with respect to
locations of the events; strategically-designed
questionnaires were administered at Ibafo, Mowe
and Ogere; three locations on the axis that can be
regarded as black spots based on the high
frequency of occurrence of accidents and fatalities
of crashes. A total of 300 questionnaires were
administered altogether.
2.3 Parameter estimation
Accident data obtained from the Federal Road
Safety Corps on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway
showed that the occurrence of road accidents can
be expressed as a function of vehicle conditions
(VC), driver behavior (DB), loading properties (LP),
road conditions (RC) and environmental factors
(EF). These were considered as explanatory
variables in the treatment of the accident data for
the period of 1998–2007 based on the application
of the categorized linear regression modeling
approach (Berthouex and Brown 2002). Typically
the model takes the form:
Y = a0 + a1*VC + a2*DB + a3*LF + a4*RC + a5*EF……...1
Where, Y is the expected accident rate and a1, a2,
a3, a4 and a5 are regression coefficients.
2.4 Analysis of questionnaires and description
of explanatory variables
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The questionnaires were analysed by using an
autoregressive time series forecasting model of the
form;
= ……….2
Where, zt is the observed response with mean
value η at forecast period t, at is the associated
forecast error while ø is a proportional term to the
deviation from the mean observation. By replacing t
with t+l for lead time l, gives,
…………….3
For any lead time, the above simplifies further to
the generalized form:
……… .4
Where represents the observed explanatory
variable contribution to the total accident rate for
each year. Thus, by introducing equation 4 as a
function of the respective explanatory variables, a
unified coding system was developed to classify the
resulting model further to which, ranking factors of
weights between 1 and 5 are attached to analyse
the effects of the explanatory variables investigated
in relation to the occurrence of the accidents.
3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
3.1 Responses to Accident Information
Figure 1 presents the trend in observed
responses on the causes of accidents with
reference to the black spots considered in this
study, that is; at Mowe (N06048’19.8’’,
0
E003 26’16.9’’), Ibafo (N06044’21.8’’,
0
E003 26’16.9’’) and Ogere
(N06056’36.2’’,E003038’43.3’’) respectively. At the
investigated locations, the causality of the
combination of poor road conditions and driver’s
behavior on accident occurrences were significant.
Both DB and RC remarkably had very high
inferences as shown in the plot. Also, when
identifying the black spots at the three specified
locations; private cars had the highest frequency of
involvement in accidents than any other as shown
in Figure 2. Although the trend is marginal in
comparison with commercial vehicles such as
buses, it elicits the understanding that driver
behavior is a significant component of the accident-
causing scenario.
3.2 Autoregression model
As functions of explanatory variables with respect
to the accident rates equations 5 and 6 were
generated during the analysis representing monthly
and yearly accident profiles respectively.
Ym=8.277 + 0.818*VC+0.7183*DB+0.7196*LP+1.0052*RC+0.0075*EF…5
 Malomo B. O, Oladejo K. A, Adio, S. A and Adekoya, L.O
Yy= 18.0019 + 0.8963*VC+0.9816*DB+1.0008*LP+0.9954*RC+1.065*EF..6
The equations above showed that a linear
relationship exists between the total accident rates
denoted by Ym and Yy and individual contributions
due to explanatory variables. Since the coefficients
of all the factors are positive, it implies that any
change in the explanatory variables would lead to a
corresponding effect on the value of the accident
rates at any instant of time. The constant terms
featuring in the equations suggest the minimum
number of events that will occur by chance and
probability regardless of the precautionary
measures taken.
3.3 Performance of model
As shown in Figure 3, the user is
introduced to the main interface with descriptive
user guide tools. Choosing to make predictions on
a futuristic basis is presented in Figure 4. By
clicking on the view pattern representative
accident-rate patterns reflecting on the properties of
predetermined/varied explanatory variables (i.e
vehicle condition, road condition, loading condition
and driver behavior) can be visualized graphically.
Figure 5 presents the interface that allows the
flexibility of making predictions based on factors
with extraneous effects on the explanatory
variables but contingent on the totality of the
accident rates. Figures 6 to 10 provide
confirmation on the influence of the explanatory
variables on accident occurrence. Although Figures
8, 9 and 10 present deterministic profiles while
Figures 9 and 10 are rather stochastic, it is clear
that with respect to time, accident rates are
explanatory-variable dependent.
4.0 CONCLUSIONS
(a) Past accident data had been used in conjuction
with qualitative procedures to characterize accident
rates on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the
developed model showed that accident rates will be
progressive with time and that any change in the
properties of the explanatory variables considered
in the study will have a corresponding effect on the
accident rates.
(b) The incidence of road accidents at the various
blackspots identified had also been correlated with
vehicle-type involvements within the purview of
perceived accident occurrences.
(c) By the adoption of the technique presented in
this study, it may be feasible to enact or modify
existing policies governing road usage in the
country by developing a sustainable accident
prevention/management system.
5.0 REFERENCES
109
1. Berhanu. G (2000). Effects of Road and Traffic
Factors on road Safety in Ethiopia, Dissertation,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Trandhum, Norway.
2 Berthouex, M. and Brown, L (2002). Statistics for
Environmental Engineers,
Lewis Publishers, Washington. 328-446.
3. Jianming M. Kara M, K and Damien P. (2007). A
multivariate Poisson – log normal regression model
for prediction of crash counts by severity, using
Bayesian methods. Accident Analysis and
Prevention (36), 2004 697 – 704 Elsvier Science
Ltd.
4 Elvik, R (2000). How much do road accidents
cost the national economy? Accident Analysis and
Prevention 32, 849 – 851.
5. Ezenwa, A. O. (1986). Trend and chart of RTA
in Nigeria. J Roy Soc. Health, 1, 27-9.
6. Federal Road Safety Commission Nigeria
(2008). Road accident statistics. (www.
frscnigeria.com)
7. Flahaunt, B., Monchart, M., San Martin, E., and
Thomas, I., (2004). Identifying black zones with a
local spatial autocorrelation under and a kernel
method. A Comparative approach. Accid. Anal.
Prev 35(6), 991–1004. Elsevier.
8. Ighile, N.G. (1990) Road Safety Measures and
the Nigeria Transport System. Ibadan, Nigeria:
Ibadan University Press.
9. Ogunsanya and Waziri (1990) Case Study of
Accident and Control of Selected State Mass
Transit Agencies. Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan
University Press.
10 Olamigoke, F. (1990) Vehicle Design and Safety
Precautions,
The Manufacturer’s (Volkswagen of Nigeria) View.
Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press.
11. Page, Y (2001). A statistical model to compare
road mortality in OECD countries. Accid. Anal.
Prev. 33, 371-385.
22nd International Conference of NIMechE, 2009 – Development Of A Heuristic Computer-Based Model For Accident Rate
Prediction On Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.

50
Inferenceonaccident occurence

Ibafo
Mowe
Ogere

40

30

DB EF RC VC LP

Explanatory variables

Fig 1. The plot on respondents view on accident occurences at selected blackspots

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60
Inferenceonaccident occurence

50

Ibafo
40 Mowe
Ogere

30

20

10
Private Commercial Buses Taxis Articulated/TankersMoped

Vehicle type

Fig 2.The plot of vehicle type and accident involvement at the blackspots

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Malomo B. O, Oladejo K. A, Adio, S. A and Adekoya, L.O

Fig. 3 Main Interface

Fig. 4 Future year predictor interface

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22 International Conference of NIMechE, 2009 – Development Of A Heuristic Computer-Based Model For Accident Rate
Prediction On Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.

2025

2020

2015

Years
2010

2005

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2000 160

n
ito
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nd
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co
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ad
1600 100

ro
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1200 80
num 1000
ber 800 60
of a
ccid 600
ents

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2025

Fig.5 Factor ranking showing flexibility of model Fig.6 Variations in road conditions and accident rates

2 01 2
2012

20 1 0
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Years

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2 00 4
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r

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lo

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e n ts of a 40
ccid 600
ents

1996
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2000 2000
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2006 2006
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2010 2010
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Fig 7.Variations in loading factors and accident rates Fig.8 Variations in environmental and accident rates

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Malomo B. O, Oladejo K. A, Adio, S. A and Adekoya, L.O

2012
2014
2010
2012
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2004 2008
yea rs

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2000 2000
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Fig. 9: Variations in vehicle conditions Fig. 10: Variations in drivers’ behavior

accident and accident rates. and accident rates.

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