Injury Factors Analysis Of Electric Bike Riders In Road Crashes In Daylight And Darkness

In recent years,the global road mortality rate has increased,with more than one million deaths every year.Among them,vulnerable road users for instance pedestrians,cyclists,electric bicycle cyclists and motorcyclists account for nearly half of the deaths.With the increasing use of electric bicycles,electric bicycle collision accidents occur frequently,and electric bicycle cyclists are facing greater risk of fatal injury.Analysing the influencing factors of electric bicycle accidents is a valid way to decrease mortality and build up road safety.Under different lighting conditions,the characteristics and risk factors related to traffic accidents are different.Mortality is higher at night than during the day,especially in crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists,both drivers and cyclists may face major challenges related to night visibility.Therefore,it is important to study and quantify the difference between the accident injury degree of cyclists during the day and at night for formulating effective injury mitigation measures.In this paper,geographic information system is used for spatial analysis to present the hot spot of electric bicycle collision day and night in Changsha City,Hunan Province.Based on the ordered probit model,daytime and night-time accidents is evaluated to study risk factors that cause different severity results of electric bicycle collision(no injury,slight injury,serious injury and fatal).The main research results of this paper are as follows:(1)Electric bike crashes at darkness are more serious than those during daylight.The serious traffic crashes for riders at darkness are 1.1 times the serious traffic crashes for riders during daylight,and the fatal ones are 1.9 times.By using the ordered probability model,it is concluded that the main influencing variables include age,illegal behaviour,collision type and road factors.(2)During daylight and darkness,the elderly electric bike riders over 65 have a higher probability of fatal.Not following traffic signals and reverse driving are significantly related to the riders’ injury severity.Drunk driving by car drivers increased the fatal probability of riders.At darkness,frontal collisions are significant factors causing the riders’ injury.In daylight,more serious crashes will be caused in bend and slope segment.At darkness,on the road with no physically separated bicycle roadways increases the risk of riders being injured.(3)The analysis of crash hot spots combined with Geographic Information System is conducive to more accurate traffic safety management of electric bikes.Electric bike crashes are mainly concentrated in the commercial area,public service area and residential area in the main urban area.In suburbs at darkness,it is more likely to cause serious injury to electric bike riders.Adding protection measures such as improved lighting,non-motorized lane facilities and interventions targeting illegal behaviour in the hot spot area can effectively reduce the electric bike crash in complex traffic.