Characteristics of accidents of selected arterials of metropolitan Dhaka

Abstract

Accident characteristics are important considerations to reduce accidents in urban areas. Past studies identified that, globally, up to two third of all traffic accidents occur in urban areas. Therefore, it is important to identify the predominant characteristics of accidents in urban areas. So, there was a aim of this study to identify predominant characteristics of accidents occurred on the five selected arterials: 1) Darussalam - Mirpur 10 which is situated under the thana area of Mirpur, 2) Mohakhali rail crossing - Moghbazar chowrasta which is situated under the thana area of Tejgoan, 3) Gabtali bus stand - Nilkhet mohr which is situated under the thana area of Mirpur, Mohammadpur and Dhanmondi, 4) Abdullapur bus stand - Mohakhali rail crossing which is situated under the thana area of Uttara, Airport and Cantonment and 5) Pressclub - Motijheel (Shapla chattar) which situated under the thana area of Ramna and Motijheel of Dhaka Metropolitan Area for the time period of 1996-2001. Accident characteristics were analyzed in terms of a) collision types, b) severity, c) modes used by the victims, d) weather conditions and e) temporal distribution. Analysis was based on relevant 1847 numbers of accident occurred on the five selected arterials out of total 5547 accidents occurred in Dhaka Metropolitan Area during the six years (1996-2001) period. The most predominant collision types were hit pedestrian (39.25%) and rear end accidents (32.54%). Involvement of motorized vehicles (i.e., baby taxi, tampoo, car, heavy truck etc.) in accidents were 77.96% (1440) and non-motorized vehicles (i.e., rickshaw, cycle etc.) were 22.04% (407). Accidents in the study area varied with severity level as fatal 37.09% (685), grievious 40.06% (740), simple 10.18% (188) and collision only 13.22% (234). A total of 2330 casualties occurred from 1847 accidents. Out of total 2330 casualties, 31.46% (733) were died, 48.45% (1129) were grieviously injured and the rest 20.09% (468) were simple injured. Casualties were heavily tilted towards younger ages (16-35 years). Severity index was in increased order in the outer region's arterials (i.e., Arterial road section 1 and 3 than the inner region's arterials (i.e., Arterial road section 2, 3 and 5). Overall 71.36% (1318) accidents occurred on links and 28.64% (529) occurred at intersections. Link accidents were further increases on the outer region's arterials than the inner region's arterials. Hit pedestrian and rear end accident types were also predominant at both links and intersections. The predominant modes used by the victims involved in accidents were baby taxi (21.39%), rickshaws (16.40%), cars (12.67%), heavy trucks (11.75%) and mini buses (9.10%). 98.48 % accidents (1819) occurred at fair weather and the rest 1.52% (28 numbers) occurred in rainy condition. Accident occurrences merely varied during hours of a typical day (06-18) with the peak at 10-12 hours of a typical day. 59.61% (llOI) accidents occurred at day time. The distribution of accidents by days of week and months of year does not exhibit appreciable variation.