Analyzing the Importance of Driver Behavior Criteria Related to Road Safety for Different Driving Cultures

• Main Authors: Danish Farooq, Sarbast Moslem, Rana Faisal Tufail, Omid Ghorbanzadeh, Szabolcs Duleba, Ahsen Maqsoom, Thomas Blaschke
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-03-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: driver behavior criteria; fuzzy analytic hierarchy process; pairwise comparison; ranking; traffic cultures; concordance; road safety
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/1893

Driver behavior has been considered as the most critical and uncertain criteria in the study of traffic safety issues. Driver behavior identification and categorization by using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) can overcome the uncertainty of driver behavior by capturing the ambiguity of driver thinking style. The main goal of this paper is to examine the significant driver behavior criteria that influence traffic safety for different traffic cultures such as Hungary, Turkey, Pakistan and China. The study utilized the FAHP framework to compare and quantify the driver behavior criteria designed on a three-level hierarchical structure. The FAHP procedure computed the weight factors and ranked the significant driver behavior criteria based on pairwise comparisons (PCs) of driver’s responses on the Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ). The study results observed “violations” as the most significant driver behavior criteria for level 1 by all nominated regions except Hungary. While for level 2, “aggressive violations” is observed as the most significant driver behavior criteria by all regions except Turkey. Moreover, for level 3, Hungary and Turkey drivers evaluated the “drive with alcohol use” as the most significant driver behavior criteria. While Pakistan and China drivers evaluated the “fail to yield pedestrian” as the most significant driver behavior criteria. Finally, Kendall’s agreement test was performed to measure the agreement degree between observed groups for each level in a hierarchical structure. The methodology applied can be easily transferable to other study areas and our results in this study can be helpful for the drivers of each region to focus on highlighted significant driver behavior criteria to reduce fatal and seriously injured traffic accidents.