Exploring Risk Factors Contributing to the Severity of Hazardous Material Transportation Accidents in China

Safety accident analysis of power transmission and substation projects based on association rule mining

To achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of power transmission and substation project construction, statistical analysis was used to provide an outline of safety accidents, the 4M1E method was applied for sorting out and analyzing the risk factors, and the Apriori algorithm was carried out for exploring the intrinsic interaction among risk factors based on association rule mining. The results showed that the safety accidents that happen in the construction of power transmission and substation projects were not much frequent, but deadly; the process of foundation construction and high fall was the most accident-prone process and injury type respectively. In addition, human behaviors were the foremost factors leading to accidents, and there was a strong correlation among the risk factors of low project management level, lack of safety awareness, and poor risk identification ability. For improving the security situation, measures should be taken for controlling human factors, performing flexible management, and strengthening safety training. In further research, more detailed and diversified accident reports and case data should be analyzed, and more consideration should be put on the weighted risk factor analysis to obtain more comprehensive and objective safety accident analysis results for power transmission and substation projects. This study highlights the risks in power transmission and substation project construction and introduces a novel method for better analyzing the intrinsic interaction among risk factors, which provides theoretical support for related departments to conduct sustainable safety management.

The impact of accidents during the transport of dangerous good, on people, the environment, and infrastructure and measures for their reduction: a review

Road transport is one of the most dangerous methods of goods transport. Driver errors and poor traffic conditions can cause traffic accidents, which can have a negative impact on people's health, the environment, and infrastructure. The main influence on the level of the consequences is the chemical composition and amount of the transported substance. This paper presents the causes of traffic accidents during the transport of dangerous goods. In addition, how traffic accidents during the transport of dangerous goods affect people's health, the environment, and infrastructure was shown. After that, measures for accidents avoidance and the alleviation and reduction of dangerous goods were given. From the review of studies from the subject field, it can be concluded that the dangerous goods are very harmful to people, the environment, and infrastructure when transport accidents occur. Lessons should be learned from the history of accidents involving the transport of dangerous goods to avoid repeating the same mistakes. The review conclusions indicate that a routes optimization and investment in road infrastructure are needed to reduce risk during the transport of dangerous goods.

Prioritizing risk factors of hazardous material road transportation accidents using the fuzzy AHP method

BACKGROUND

Annually, large amounts of hazardous materials (hazmat) are transported through the roads and this movement causes various accidents. Identifying the causes of these accidents is a critical issue for all public governments.

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to identify the effective risk factors for hazmat road transport accidents and determine their relative weight using the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method.

METHODS

This qualitative study was conducted in 2021 in Iran and included four steps, i.e., the identification (using literature review and semi-structured interview), determination (according to the expert panel opinion), classification, and prioritization of effective factors in hazmat road transportation accidents. To prioritize and determine the relative weight of the effective factors, the fuzzy AHP technique was used.

RESULTS

In total, 159 risk factors were identified, which were classified into six factors (including road, transportation management, vehicle, cargo, driver, and weather conditions) and 24 bub-factors. The main factor (greatest relative weight) with the highest priority was the driver (0.181). The road (0.167), cargo (0.166), vehicle (0.169), transportation management (0.161), and weather conditions (0.159) were the next priorities, in that order.

CONCLUSION

The results demonstrated that the driver is the most important factor in causing accidents when transporting hazmat by road. The findings of this study might have the potential to decrease the frequency and consequence of accidents caused by the road transport of hazmat.

Analysis on alteration of road traffic casualties in western China from multi-department data in recent decade

Background

Road traffic safety has considerably improved in China. However, the changes may differ in the economically backward and altitude higher western region. This study aims to investigate changes in the occurrence and severity of traffic casualties in western China and illuminate several key causal factors.

Materials and methods

Traffic accident data from the Annual Traffic Accident Statistics Report combined with population and vehicle data from the China Statistics Bureau between 2009 and 2019, were retrospectively analyzed. Traffic accident numbers, fatalities, human injury (HI), case fatality rates (CFR), mortality per 100,000 population (MRP), and mortality per 10,000 vehicles (MRV) were compared between the western and eastern regions. The HI, CFR, MRV, and MRP between the four groups based on the altitude of cities, below 500 meters, 500 to 1,500 meters, 1,500 to 3,000 meters, and over 3,000 meters, were compared using one-way analysis of variance. One hundred and seventy-eight cases of extremely serious traffic accidents were further analyzed in terms of accident occurrence time, vehicle type, road grade, road shape, accident pattern, and accident reason. The differences of accident characteristics between the eastern and western regions were compared using the chi-square test.

Results

The number of traffic accidents and fatalities decreased in low-altitude areas in western China. However, there was a significant increasing trend in the high altitude area. The HI, CFR, MRV, and MRP were higher in the western region than that in the eastern and national. Those accident indicators tended to increase with increasing altitude. And there were statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) among groups from different altitudes. Chi-square test results show that there are statistically significant differences (p < 0.05) in term of road grade, road shape, accident pattern between eastern and western. Low-grade roads, combined curved and sloping roads, and rollover were significant features associated with traffic accidents in the western region. Bad roads were the main cause of rollover accidents in western China, which will lead to more serious casualties. Over speeding, overloading, bad weather, vehicle failure, and driver error were the top five accident causes.

Conclusion

Traffic accidents are increasing in high-altitude areas of western China, and they lead to more severe casualties. The characteristics of serious traffic accidents in this part of the country differ from those of the eastern regions. Improving road safety facilities, restrictions of speed, and improving medical treatment at accident scenes may be effective measures to reduce traffic accidents related injuries in the western region.

The Situation of Hazardous Materials Accidents during Road Transportation in China from 2013 to 2019

The safety situation of hazardous materials (hazmat) accidents during road transportation in China is severe and very serious accidents occurred frequently. Such accidents not only have a huge impact on the environment but also have serious consequences for people and the economy, such as fires and explosions. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the characteristics and laws of road transport accidents of hazmat systematically. This paper investigated 2777 hazmat transportation accidents in China from 2013 to 2019 to identify the characteristics, consequences, and causes of the accident. The results show that August (10.05%) and December (9.76%) are the peak periods of hazmat transportation accidents, while most hazmat transportation accidents occurred in the early morning (6:00-9:00 a.m.) and at noon (9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.) hours. For the geographical location, the accidents mainly occurred in the east China (34.35%) and the northwest China areas (14.87%). The main types of hazmat transportation accidents were rollover (35.36%), rear-end (22.58%), and collision (14.87%), where the probability of a major leak was high. The most common hazmat transportation accidents involve gas (17.79%), flammable liquid (56.07%), and corrosive substance (12.28%). The most common consequences of the hazmat transportation accidents were leakage (80.34%), followed by fire release (8.32%) and explosion release (2.34%). Human factor (26.74%) is the main cause of hazmat transportation accidents. These findings could help hazmat transportation managers and planners develop appropriate measures for improving hazmat transportation safety.

Severity Analysis of Hazardous Material Road Transportation Crashes with a Bayesian Network Using Highway Safety Information System Data

Although crashes involving hazardous materials (HAZMAT) are rare events compared with other types of traffic crashes, they often cause tremendous loss of life and property, as well as severe hazards to the environment and public safety. Using five-year (2013–2017) crash data (N = 1610) from the Highway Safety Information System database, a two-step machine learning-based approach was proposed to investigate and quantify the statistical relationship between three HAZMAT crash severity outcomes (fatal and severe injury, injury, and no injury) and contributing factors, including the driver, road, vehicle, crash, and environmental characteristics. Random forest ranked the importance of risk factors, and then Bayesian networks were developed to provide probabilistic inference. The results show that fatal and severe HAZMAT crashes are closely associated with younger drivers (age less than 25), driver fatigue, violation, distraction, special roadway locations (such as intersections, ramps, and bridges), higher speed limits (over 66 mph), midnight and early morning (12:00–5:59 a.m.), head-on crashes, more than four vehicles, fire/explosion/spill, poor lighting conditions, and adverse weather conditions. The overall prediction accuracy of 85.8% suggests the effectiveness of the proposed method. This study extends machine learning applications in a HAZMAT crash analysis, which would help develop targeted countermeasures and strategies to improve HAZMAT road transportation safety.

Insights into Factors Affecting Traffic Accident Severity of Novice and Experienced Drivers: A Machine Learning Approach

Traffic accidents have significant financial and social impacts. Reducing the losses caused by traffic accidents has always been one of the most important issues. This paper presents an effort to investigate the factors affecting the accident severity of drivers with different driving experience. Special focus was placed on the combined effect of driving experience and age. Based on our dataset (traffic accidents that occurred between 2005 and 2021 in Shaanxi, China), CatBoost model was applied to deal with categorical feature, and SHAP (Shapley Additive exPlanations) model was used to interpret the output. Results show that accident cause, age, visibility, light condition, season, road alignment, and terrain are the key factors affecting accident severity for both novice and experienced drivers. Age has the opposite impact on fatal accident for novice and experienced drivers. Novice drivers younger than 30 or older than 55 are prone to suffer fatal accident, but for experienced drivers, the risk of fatal accident decreases when they are young and increases when they are old. These findings fill the research gap of the combined effect of driving experience and age on accident severity. Meanwhile, it can provide useful insights for practitioners to improve traffic safety for novice and experienced drivers.

Improving Risk Assessment for Transporting Dangerous Goods through European Road Tunnels: A Delphi Study

Managing the transportation of dangerous goods (DG) through road tunnels is of great importance since it is associated with a serious risk of accidents. The consequences of an accident involving DG, especially in the closed tunnel environment, might be more significant and even more catastrophic compared to the same accident occurring on an open road. This article presents the Greek experience regarding the application of quantitative risk assessment (QRA) methods for the transportation of DG through Greek road tunnels. The modified Delphi method, with the participation of nine experts, is employed to investigate the obstacles to successfully conforming with the mandatory European Union regulatory framework that applies to transport operations within the Trans-European road network. Recommendations are made to improve the applied QRA approach, to facilitate the cooperation between tunnel managers and emergency services, to communicate lessons learned and to enhance the training of risk assessors.

Pythagorean fuzzy AHP based risk assessment methodology for hazardous material transportation: an application in Istanbul

Environment and social life are open to hazards, because of the distribution, diffusion, and conversion processes of chemicals contained in hazardous materials. These chemicals are very dangerous. Various precautions should be taken into consideration during the displacement of hazardous materials. Therefore, it is important to identify and minimize the risks in the transportation of hazardous material. This work investigates to identify the critical risk factors and their weights for hazardous material transportation operations. The literature is reviewed, critical risk factors for hazardous material transportation are defined, and data from different experts is collected. A two-level hierarchical structure is established to evaluate risk factors. Then, the experts' evaluations of main and sub-risk factors are consolidated using the modified Delphi method. Weights of main and sub-risk factors are obtained using the Pythagorean fuzzy analytic hierarchy process method. To show the robustness of the proposed decision-making methodology, a sensitivity analysis is conducted.

Influential Factors Associated with Consecutive Crash Severity: A Two-Level Logistic Modeling Approach

A consecutive crash series is composed by a primary crash and one or more subsequent secondary crashes that occur immediately within a certain distance. The crash mechanism of a consecutive crash series is distinctive, as it is different from common primary and secondary crashes mainly caused by queuing effects and chain-reaction crashes that involve multiple collisions in one crash. It commonly affects a large area of road space and possibly causes congestions and significant delays in evacuation and clearance. This study identified the influential factors determining the severity of primary and secondary crashes in a consecutive crash series. Basic, random-effects, random-parameters, and two-level binary logistic regression models were established based on crash data collected on the freeway network of Guizhou Province, China in 2018, of which 349 were identified as consecutive crashes. According to the model performance metrics, the two-level logistic model outperformed the other three models. On the crash level, double-vehicle primary crash had a negative association with the severity of secondary consecutive crashes, and the involvement of trucks in the secondary consecutive crash had a positive contribution to its crash severity. On a road segment level, speed limit, traffic volume, tunnel, and extreme weather conditions such as rainy and cloudy days had positive effects on consecutive crash severity, while the number of lanes was negatively associated with consecutive crash severity. Policy suggestions are made to alleviate the severity of consecutive crashes by reminding the drivers with real-time potential hazards of severe consecutive crashes and providing educative programs to specific groups of drivers.

Characteristics, Cause, and Severity Analysis for Hazmat Transportation Risk Management

The accidents caused by hazardous material during road transportation may result in catastrophic losses of lives and economics, as well as damages to the environment. Regarding the deficiencies in the information systems of hazmat transportation accidents, this study conducts a survey of 371 accidents with consequence Levels II to V involving road transportation in China from 2004–2018. The study proposes a comprehensive analysis framework for understanding the overall status associated with key factors of hazmat transportation in terms of characteristics, cause, and severity. By incorporating the adaptive data analysis techniques and tackling uncertainty, the preventative measures can be carried out for supporting safety management in hazmat transportation. Thus, this study firstly analyzed spatial–temporal trends to understand the major characteristics of hazmat transportation accidents. Secondly, it presented a quantitative description of the relation among the hazmat properties, accident characteristics, and the consequences of the accidents using the decision tree approach. Thirdly, an enhanced F-N curve-based analysis method that can describe the relationship between cumulative probability F and number of deaths N, was proposed under the power-law distribution and applied to several practical data sets for severity analysis. It can evaluate accident severity of hazmat material by road transportation while taking into account uncertainty in terms of data sources. Through the introduction of the as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) principle for determining acceptable and tolerable levels, it is indicated that the F-N curves are above the tolerable line for most hazmat accident scenarios. The findings can provide an empirically supported theoretical basis for the decision-makers to take action to reduce accident frequencies and risks for effective hazmat transportation management.