Research On Contributory Factors Of Major Road Passenger Vehicle Accidents From The Perspective Of Human Factors

With the rapid socio-economic development of China and the increasing expansion of the coverage of the road passenger transport network,major road passenger transport accidents,mainly caused by human factors,have become one of the major disasters in the field of production safety in China.As an important part of public safety,road passenger transport requires interdisciplinary research in science,engineering and management.Unlike the disciplines of science and engineering,which focus on engineering and technology to improve road passenger safety,management science needs to focus on human factors to analyze the causes of accidents and make appropriate institutional arrangements.The current academic research results related to the analysis of the systemic causes of major passenger transport accidents from the perspective of human factors are relatively rare.Therefore,this study constructs an analysis and classification system of the causes of major road passenger transport accidents and an accident causation model from the perspective of human factors,in order to provide policy reference for the investigation and analysis of major road passenger transport accidents and the improvement of road passenger transport safety management.Firstly,the Contributory Factors Analysis and Classification System-Major Road Passenger Vehicle Accidents(CFACS-MRPVA)was constructed based on the content analysis of accident investigation reports.Fifty-six accident investigation reports of road passenger vehicle accidents with 10 or more fatalities that occurred in the mainland of China were collected,and then qualitative content analysis of the accident investigation reports was conducted using the three-level coding method of open coding,main axis coding and selective coding based on the grounded theory,and the inductive class construction method was selected for the specific coding path.To ensure the reliability of the study: Cohen’s Kappa value reliability test was conducted at the level of the main categories generated by selective coding,and the validity of the study was improved in three ways: the selection of analysis data,the use of coding terms,and the social acceptance of the results.Secondly,grey correlation analysis was used to identify the main causal factors at each level of the CFACS-MRPVA.The method was used to calculate the correlation degrees between the primary indicators and the total causal factors,the secondary indicators and the primary indicators,the third-level indicators and the secondary-level indicators,and the main causal factors at the primary,secondary and third levels were identified.In addition,since the driver’s unsafe behavior is considered to be influenced by the preconditions of unsafe acts,the safety management of passenger transport enterprises and the safety supervision of government agencies,the main influencing factors of the driver’s unsafe acts are also identified by the method of calculating the degrees of correlation.Thirdly,based on the constructed CFACS-MRPVA,the identification results of the main causal factors within the CFACS-MRPVA system,the causal analysis model of major road passenger vehicle accidents(CFACS-STAMP of Major Road Passenger Vehicle Accidents,CS-MRPVA)were constructed based on the system safety theory.The validity of the model was verified using the expert judgement method and the application validation method.The expert judgment method was completed by inviting10 experts in relevant fields to judge the validity of the validity of the model’s analysis levels,the levels’ indicator system,and the strating point and process of the analysis,and then the consistency of the expert judgment results was statistically analyzed.The specific method of application validation was: the model(CS-MRPVA)was used to conduct a systematic causation analysis of a serious road passenger accident that occurred in Ganzhou,Jiangxi Province on 20 February 2018.The results of the causation analysis were compared with the accident investigation report issued by the accident investigation team in terms of analysis dimension,analysis perspective and focus.Based on the above research content,the main conclusions of this research are:Firstly,the contributory factor analysis and classification system of major road passenger vehicle accidents can be summarized into seven levels: government regulations(L1),the organizational influence of passenger transport enterprises(L2),unsafe internal operational supervision(L3),preconditions for drivers’ unsafe acts(L4),drivers’ unsafe acts(L5),proximate causes other than the driver’s unsafe acts(L6)and moderating factors affecting accident probability and severity(L7).Among these factors,the sixth level “proximate causes other than the driver’s acts” refers to events other than driver errors and violations that directly cause accidents;the seventh level“moderating factors affecting accident probability and severity” refers to factors that do not directly cause accidents and are not related to drivers and passenger transport enterprises,but may affect accident severity and probability of occurrence,such as low passenger safety awareness and poor quality of bridge crash barriers that cannot effectively protect runaway vehicles.Secondly,the main causal factors at each level of the accident causation analysis and classification system(CFACS-MRPVA)are as follows: At the level of primary indicators,organizational influence of passenger transport operators(L2)is the most important factor;at the level of secondary indicators,road safety management(X2),resource management of passenger transport operators(X5),inadequate internal supervision of passenger transport operators(X8),personal factors of drivers(X10),driver’s errors(X14),illegal transportation of dangerous goods(X17)and individuallevel moderating factors(X19)are the main secondary causal factors of L1-L7,respectively;At the level of tertiary indicators,lax enforcement of traffic laws(X2a),poor human resource management(X5a),dynamic monitoring in a virtual sense(X8c),poor driver safety awareness(X10a),decision-making errors(X14b)and poor safety awareness among passengers(X19a)are the main tertiary causal factors for secondary indicators X2,X5,X8,X10,X14 and X19 respectively.In addition,the conditions for unsafe acts by drivers,unsafe internal operational supervision and organizational influence of passenger transport enterprises were all highly correlated with unsafe driving.Thirdly,the traditional accident causation analysis starting from “driver’s unsafe acts” is not only limited in scope,but may also make the conclusions of accident causation analysis incomplete.The CS-MRPVA model starts from the “accident process”and divides the process of accident causation analysis into two main stages: firstly,the analysis of the accident process and its proximate events and moderating factors,and secondly,the analysis of the problems existing at each subject of the safety management system.The systematic analysis method based on accident causation not only improves the quality of accident investigation and analysis,but also facilitates the identification of deficiencies in the safety management system,thus providing a clear direction for risk management and the design of a safer management system to achieve the goal of continuously improving system safety.The main innovations of this paper are: firstly,unlike traditional road safety research which focuses the human causes of accidents on the driver,this study extends the human causes of accidents to all levels of the road passenger transport system,making the causal factors summarized in this paper more comprehensive and complete.Secondly,the analysis of the qualitative content of the accident investigation report shows that the traditional method of causal analysis based on “unsafe driving” is not only limited in scope,but also tends to ignore the causal factors outside the chain of events.The causal analysis method proposed by this study is based on the concept of“accident process”,which makes the conclusion of the accident causal analysis more systematic and scientific.Thirdly,this study forms the contributory factors analysis and classification system of major road passenger vehicle accident(CFACS-MRPVA)based on the concept of system safety,and constructs the accident causation analysis model(CS-MRPVA)based on the “accident process”,which not only expands the content of road passenger accident causation research,but also enriches the theory and method of road passenger accident causation analysis.Fourthly,in the context of serious passenger transportation accidents occurring occasionally and the urgent need to optimize the safety production accident investigation model,the CFACS-MRPVA and CS-MRPVA,the identified key causal factors of accidents and the proposed countermeasures to improve passenger transportation safety can provide reference for road passenger transportation safety management agencies and safety production policy and regulation makers.