Developing a Model for Forecasting Road Traffic Accident (RTA) Fatalities in Yemen

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a model for forecasting RTA fatalities in Yemen. The yearly fatalities was modeled as the dependent variable, while the number of independent variables included the population, number of vehicles, GNP, GDP and Real GDP per capita. It was determined that all these variables are highly correlated with the correlation coefficient (r ≈ 0.9); in order to avoid multicollinearity in the model, a single variable with the highest r value was selected (real GDP per capita). A simple regression model was developed; the model was very good (R2=0.916); however, the residuals were serially correlated. The Prais-Winsten procedure was used to overcome this violation of the regression assumption. The data for a 20-year period from 1991-2010 were analyzed to build the model; the model was validated by using data for the years 2011-2013; the historical fit for the period 1991 - 2011 was very good. Also, the validation for 2011-2013 proved accurate.