Prediction of road traffic accidents based on grey system theory and grey Markov model

Abstract

The economic boom in China has pushed up the car ownership, which in turn leads to a rise in road traffic accidents. Thus, it is important to predict the trend of road traffic accidents from the existing data on such accidents. This paper sums up the features of road traffic accidents in China in recent years, and predicts such accidents separately based on grey system theory and grey Markov model. The prediction results of the two methods were compared. Then, the influencing factors of road traffic accidents were identified, and several countermeasures were put forward to ensure traffic safety. The results show that the number of road traffic accidents, as well as the number of deaths, the number of injuries, and property loss caused by such accidents in China were falling before 2015, but all rebounded after 2015; the relative errors of grey prediction maximized at 7.24% and minimized at 0.49%, while those of grey Markov model maximized at 1.96% and minimized at 0.02%; the grey Markov model is obviously more accurate than grey prediction in the forecast of road traffic accidents. The research results provide a good reference for the prevention of road traffic accidents.