A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF BANGKOK TRAFFIC ACCIDENT DATA

Abstract

A nonlinear regression model has been used to explain the adjusted monthly number of road accidents per 100,000 people (referred as "Adjusted Road Accident Rate") occurred within Bangkok, Thailand, from 2010 to 2016 in term of seven other variables. The extensive analysis is quite interesting, as it indicated that the main and overwhelming factor that contributed to accident rate is the total number of vehicles in the city. In addition, three other variables, namely - mean temperature, the total amount of rainfall and the number of holidays, also contributed to the accident rate, albeit mildly. The implications of this study is quite profound in the sense that if the city planners and policy makers want to reduce the accident rate then total number of vehicles need to be reduced, perhaps through investing more resources into public transportation and/or increasing vahicular fees which may discourage more vehicles on the streets. Other major cities in Southeast Asia, such as Kolkata, Dhaka, Ho Chi Minh City, etc. having similar characteristics as Bangkok can draw lessons from this study.