Evaluating Relationship Among Built Environment, Road Encroachment And Road Safety

Abstract

In recent years, developing countries have encountered issues such as road traffic crashes, injuries and property loses as a consequence of roadside activities. These are emergent, difficult, and one of the most pressing concerns in Bangladesh, as well as in many other developing countries. Several studies have quantified traffic characteristics due to encroachment but many significant factors which are most affected by and cause encroachment, remain unexplored. This study aims to identify the underlying causes of encroachment, and their impact on the built environment and vice versa, as well as the unexplored relationship between encroachment and road safety. Using GIS tool, 249 four legged intersections were identified for data processing and categorization. A fishbone diagram was developed to identify the 8 main factors – permitted traffic movement, land use, road furniture, pedestrian facility, signal/sign/road marking/pavement, right-of-way, public transport, goods vehicle, and visibility. In the input data set, the feature importance score for each variable was determined, and the variables with the greatest influence were selected using the C4.5 decision tree algorithm. Lastly, a Multinomial Logit Regression model was developed using the features deemed important by the C4.5 algorithm to predict the encroachment severity and the most influential factors behind it. The findings of this study offer valuable insights that can serve as a resource for policy makers and law enforcement authorities in formulating policies and implementing measures to reduce roadside encroachments and its resulting adversities