Investigating the effect of climatic factors on road accidents applying hierarchical analysis method (Case Study: Kermanshah province roads in Iran)

In the present study, the relationship between climatic parameters and road accidents in the road network of Kermanshah province is investigated. Because, studying road accidents, as the most important dilemma for transportation and communication networks, has the highest contrast considering human and environment. Therefore, the required data, including the data related to the accidents, accident-prone regions, statistics and effective parametric information (sunny weather, rainfall, snow, glacial, and horizontal view) during the existing statistical periods were gathered from synoptic stations and file shapes of the province. At first, applying interpolation methods, the measured point values of synoptic stations were distributed through the study area. Using reclassification procedure, the maps were classified into four groups ranging from the least dangerous to the most dangerous. They were saved as a raster. Then, multi-critical decision making method of hierarchical analysis was applied to determine the importance coefficient of each parameter. It was characterized by gathering the ideas of the experts, making the matrix of pairwise comparison, and analyzing these comparisons in Expert Choice software. At the end, the zoning of the province roads according to the effects of weather factors on the road accidents was done by applying weighted sum function by GIS software. Based on the results, it was found that sunny weather has the highest effect on road accidents in Kermanshah province, and precipitation, frost, horizontal visibility and air temperature are in the next ranks, respectively.