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Uncovering the behaviour of road accidents in urban areas

Cabrera-Arnau, C; Curiel, R; Bishop, SR; (2020) Uncovering the behaviour of road accidents in urban areas. Royal Society Open Science , 7 (4) 10.1098/rsos.191739. Green open access

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Abstract

Different patterns in the incidence of road accidents are revealed when considering areas with increased levels of urbanization. To understand these patterns, road accident data from England and Wales is explored. In particular, the data are used to (i) generate time series for comparison of the incidence of road accidents in urban as opposed to rural areas, (ii) analyse the relationship between the number of road accidents and the population size of a set of urban areas, and (iii) model the likelihood of suffering an accident in an urban area and its dependence with population size. It is observed that minor and serious accidents are more frequent in urban areas, whereas fatal accidents are more likely in rural areas. It is also shown that, generally, the number of accidents in an urban area depends on population size superlinearly, with this superlinear behaviour becoming stronger for lower degrees of severity. Finally, given an accident in an urban area, the probability that the accident is fatal or serious decreases with population size and the probability that it is minor, increases sublinearly. These findings promote the question as to why such behaviours exist, the answer to which will lead to more sustainable urban policies.

Type: Article
Title: Uncovering the behaviour of road accidents in urban areas
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.191739
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191739
Language: English
Additional information: Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Mathematics
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10097218
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