Accident investigation of Southern expressway

Abstract

Road accidents have become a normal and re-occurring phenomenon from the beginning of the operation of the expressway up to this date. This study focuses on analyzing the data collected by the Expressway Operation Maintenance & Management Division and Expressway Police Division, based on accidents from day one of the operation of the expressway up to the end of April 2016. The objective is to present accident trends between interchanges and conduct a comparison with accidents which take place in other expressways based on the accident rate (Accidents per Vehicle Kilometers Travelled). For SPSS frequency analysis, Day, Time, Location, Severity, Causes of the accidents and Conditions of locations are taken as data. Thereafter, Accidents prone locations, Causes for the accidents are analyzed with SPSS based on the three main factors, namely Human, Vehicle and Infrastructure/Environment factors. The causes of accidents and their general preventive measures are discussed based on the safety audit process. This report provides a detailed analysis on accidents within a selected time period based on various factors influencing accidents. A total of 2275 accidents, have been reported on the carriageway of the southern expressway and out of that, 14 were fatal accidents, 10.6% have caused Injuries and 88.8% have caused only property damage. This is seen as an unhealthy trend let to be continued without taking any preventative action. Most accidents have occurred when the weather condition was fair, and 36.1% occurred during the rainy weather. 40% of the accidents were reported to have taken place on a wet road surface condition. About 13 accident prone locations have been identified in between the Kottawa to Pinnaduwa section. This research would aid in the enhancement of the safety of the expressway network, and would be conducive to the planning of safety procedures in future expressway developments. Introduction of innovative changes is expected to minimize the accident rate and alleviate the severity of accidents.