A Deep Learning Approach to the Citywide Traffic Accident Risk Prediction

Abstract: With the rapid development of urbanization, the boom of vehicle numbers has resulted in serious traffic accidents, which led to casualties and huge economic losses. The ability to predict the risk of traffic accident is important in the prevention of the occurrence of accidents and to reduce the damages caused by accidents in a proactive way. However, traffic accident risk prediction with high spatiotemporal resolution is difficult, mainly due to the complex traffic environment, human behavior, and lack of real-time traffic-related data. In this study, we collected big traffic accident data. By analyzing the spatial and temporal patterns of traffic accident frequency, we presented the spatiotemporal correlation of traffic accidents. Based on the patterns we found in analysis, we proposed a high accurate deep learning model based on recurrent neural network toward the prediction of traffic accident risk. The predictive accident risk can be potential applied to the traffic accident warning system. The proposed method can be integrated into an intelligent traffic control system toward a more reasonable traffic prediction and command organization.