Analysis of Crashes at Intersections in Bucharest

Road crashes involve important social and economic consequences and therefore crash analysis and traffic risk represented the topic of many studies. Better understanding of factors that influence the likelihood of crash occurrence could lead to appropriate measures to road safety enhancement. The main objective of this paper is to identify the relationships (i.e., crash-frequency estimation model) between crash frequency and contributing factors related to road infrastructure, traffic and demographic characteristics. The study is implemented for Bucharest, based on crash data over 5 years (2008–2012). The first part of the paper presents the analysis on counted crashes at intersections. The second part describes crash-frequency estimation models developed for different types of intersection, based on negative binomial distribution. The developed models will be useful tools in urban traffic risk assessment at planning phase. In this way, several urban planning alternatives could be analysed and evaluated before important urban and transport infrastructure investment, with negative impact on road safety, are made.