Safety at road junctions

Abstract

With the growing global population, demand for transportation has been rising, resulting in more vehicles present on the roads. Road users are hence exposed to more dangers, especially at road traffic intersections. This paper examines the trend of road accidents in Singapore from 2003 to 2013 and analyses the fatal road junction accidents from 2011 to 2013 to identify causation patterns in the accidents. The characteristics of accidents analysed includes the type of intersection where fatal accidents occur (Signalized or Non-signalized / T- or cross-junctions), the time of the day where fatal crashes peak and the type of collision that killed the road users. The data were first obtained from police reports which were documented in the Singapore Traffic Police Headquarters. Then, the characteristics of the fatal accidents were ranked according to their frequency of occurrences. The trends observed showed a drop in total accidents in Singapore but there has been an increasing trend in the number of fatal accidents occurring at road junctions. Analysis from the 157 cases indicated that over 50% of the fatal road junction accidents occur at signalized cross intersections, highlighting their danger. The data also demonstrated that the top collisions were vehicle-pedestrian, vehicle-bicycle and collisions between turning vehicles with those proceeding straight through the junction, supporting literatures which study the common types of collisions. Among the collisions with turning vehicles, vulnerable motorcyclists were usually the casualty. Collectively, these results suggest that improvements in the current traffic intersections can be made.