Risk factor analysis of traffic accident for different age group based on adaptive boosting

In order to explore the major traffic accident factors for different age groups, this paper adopts the accident data of Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) for empirical study. 33,245 accident records in a state from January 1st, 2010 to December 31st, 2011 are selected. 8 accident factors, as well as their corresponding sub-factors, are analyzed for both senior-driver group and young-driver group. A data processing method for traffic accidents based on an adaptive boosting algorithm (AdaBoost) is proposed. According to the analysis results, the major factors that influence the driving safety of the senior driver group are weather and the time of day, the weight of which are 0.28 and 0.22, respectively. In particular, the rainy and snowy days, the sub-factors from the weather variable, influence old drivers most significantly. In contrast, the main factors that affect the driving safety of young people are traffic violation and vehicle behavior, with a weight of 0.25 and 0.19, respectively. Hence, it could be inferred that the diverse manifestation patterns of traffic accidents are related to drivers' age.