Identification and Ranking of Accident Black Spots in Jordan

Abstract

In any country, identifying high-intensity accident hotspots is essential in establishing effective techniques to minimize high-intensity accident sites. Because of Jordan’s continual population growth in recent years, vehicle ownership has grown, leading to an increase in accident rates. According to many researches, Jordan suffers from damages caused by traffic accidents. As a result, the current study focuses on finding the black spots in selected Jordanian localities as a first step toward identifying the strategies to minimize traffic accidents in Jordan. To achieve this objective, the researcher started their investigation by collecting the accidents that occurred in Jordan during three years in 30 departments in Amman. The study area includes 30 segments in seven intersections in Amman city. Based on the collected data, the case study traffic sites were ranked based on their safety performance using several methods: accident rates, accident frequency, and accident severity index. The study's findings revealed that the high safety segment in the study area is from al-zamakhshre to interchange al-shfaa. In contrast, the high black spots are found from Jordan University to major streets. Results confirmed that identifying the high black spots segments contributes to reducing expected traffic accidents.