Evaluating the crash risk of powered two-wheelers in urban mixed traffic environments: a conflict threshold perspective

Abstract

The study investigates the crash risk of powered two-wheelers (PTWs) involved in multiple conflict types, with different vehicle classes constituting a mixed traffic stream. This study uses the extreme value theory to estimate the crash risk after establishing the conflict thresholds for potential rear-end and side-swipe conflicts by accounting for interacting vehicle types. The study considers four vehicle pairs involving PTWs: PTW-PTW, PTW-MThW (motorized three-wheeler), PTW-Car, and PTW-Bus. The study found that the conflict thresholds corresponding to rear-end and side-swipe types increase with the interacting vehicle size. The crash risk is lowest for the PTW-PTW pair (0.315%) in rear-end conflicts, whereas the risk is the highest for the PTW-MThW pair (3.7%) in side-swipe conflicts. The crash risk corresponding to the PTW interacting with other vehicle types is higher than that of the PTW-PTW pair. Hence, the implementation of exclusive PTW lanes could be an effective risk mitigation strategy for PTW-dominant mixed traffic environments.

Keywords:

• Powered two-wheeler
• mixed traffic
• anticipated collision time
• crash risk
• conflict threshold

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.