Modeling the effect of age of vehicles in collisions with fixed roadside objects

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 IUST

2 Master of Transportation Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the crashworthiness (CW) index of the five most commonly used Iranian passenger vehicle brands (Pride, Peugeot 405, Peugeot 206, Samand, and Thunder 90) by assessing the effect of vehicle age on driver injury severity in rural fixed-object crashes. Since rural roads have mostly lower safety standards and usage of safety features than urban areas, only rural crash data from Iran (2011-2017) were analyzed. A two-step approach was applied: initially, the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) method identified important variables, and then, Bionamial Logistic Regression modeled the relationships between injury severity and safety performance, using vehicle age and seven additional variables (driver age and gender, lighting conditions, road surface, road type, shoulder type, and seatbelt use) as independent variables. The CW index, based on the odds ratios, exhibited that vehicles over five years old had a 20% increase in odds of fatal or severe injury, which rose to 50% for vehicles over ten years old. Notably, safety performance declines were not uniform. While most brands decreased similarly up to ten years, Samand showed faster deterioration after this period. Conversely, Peugeot 405 and Pars demonstrated slower declines, indicating longer effective lifespans. Additionally, drivers under 25, driving at sunrise, and not wearing seatbelts were identified as high-risk groups across most brands.

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Amirkabir Journal of Civil Engineering

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 07 January 2025

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