Investigating Contributing Factors of Hard-Braking Events on Urban Road Network

Hard-braking constitutes a critical surrogate measure of traffic safety on urban road networks. Efforts aiming to unveil the effects of contributing factors on the occurrence of hard-braking are inadequate. This study extracted the hard-braking event (HBE) and ordinary-braking event (OBE) by GPS trajectories from float cars. The effect of several factors on HBE was examined, including the factors of time, pre-braking behaviors, and road characteristics. The possibility of HBE was compared with that of OBE through binary logistic models (BLM). To further disclose the influence of factors, we considered the interaction between variables (BLM-VI) in modeling. The analysis results indicate that the BLM-VI is superior to the classical BLM in goodness-of-fit and factor interpretation. For the factors, peak hours on weekdays and daytime on weekends are positively linked to HBE, while driving at night is not. HBEs can be triggered by pre-braking behaviors such as speeding and approaching an intersection, but it is not likely to occur after changing lanes. Roads with work zones or intensive accesses can decrease the possibility of HBE. The factors of on-road parking, median divider, and one-way control have mixed effects on HBE when they interact with the factor of speed limits.