Evaluating the Relationship between Surrogate Safety Measures and Traffic Event Severity in Terms of Human Perception of Danger: A Perspective under Indian Traffic Conditions

Abstract

The current study aimed to develop a relationship between surrogate safety indicators and human judgement of severity. It has been demonstrated that human observers frequently display excellent agreement when asked to assess traffic incidents by their level of danger. Therefore, this research examines, in depth, how surrogate safety indicators might be used to represent human judgement of the severity of traffic incidents. This study analyzed 1141 traffic incidences of various vehicle categories according to their behavior during an interaction. Furthermore, ordinal logistic regression was used to develop a model for evaluating the most significant objective indicators relevant to people’s perceptions of danger. The findings indicated that the most crucial data for determining the severity of a traffic event is found in its earliest conditions, which are defined as the beginning of an evasive action. Moreover, factors affecting both closeness and collision consequences are significant and should be included in severity metrics.