Road Accident Analysis: A Case Study of Federal Route FT024 Yong Peng- Parit Sulong

Traffic accidents are considered as an unplanned and unfortunate event which is a serious concern to the community as well as the authority. An accident-counter measure can reduce the rate of road accidents by initially identifying critical locations. The total of road accidents along FT 024 between 2009 and 2012 is 907 cases. Road accidents during the same period range between 24 % and 26 % each year. These accidents killed 34 people and injuring another 101 people. This research aims to identify factors that may contribute to the cause of accidents and to study the effects of speed, volume and road geometry on road accidents. In this study, the locations labelled as km 1, km 2, km 4, km 8, km 5 and km 14 of Federal Route FT 024 Yong Peng – Parit Sulong were selected as the study-case sections based on Accident Point Weightage of ranking, in which each location has different road characteristics. Speed study was carried out at selected road sections to evaluate the influence of speed upon road accidents; and traffic volume count was conducted at the same selected road sections to determine the existing condition of the route. Besides, road geometry observations and measurements were also conducted at selected sections, they were also studied to evaluate influence of road designs upon road accidents. The extracted data were analyzed by using regression analysis on different variables to evaluate the relationship between accident Weightage point and other dependent variables that were considered to have considerable effects upon road accidents such as mean speed, volume, shoulder width, lane width and access point. P value below 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. After conducting data analysis, this study showed that the number of road accidents increases with the increment of speed and access point. On the other hand, volume has no strong relationship to road accidents which means that it may not have an effect on accidents. Moreover, based on the assumptions made by the researchers and project supervisors, road safety index development is important for the selected road sections along FT 024 to improve the road conditions in terms of safety and also to propose improvements at the selected locations in order to reduce accident rate