Road traffic accidents (RTAs) are events that suddenly, inadvertently and unexpectedly occur under unforeseen circumstances that involve at least one moving vehicle and result in one or more road users being killed or injured. Unfortunately, Iraqi governorates suffer from higher rates of traffic accident casualties compared with the rates of casualties from terrorist attacks; this situation reveals a serious and growing problem. Road traffic accidents are not easy to eradicate. However, their prevalence can be reduced to the barest minimum via periodic assessments of traffic accident characteristics and the most important aspects for road authorities to consider when designing and evaluating the performance of a road to improve traffic and road users’ safety.Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to evaluate traffic accidents in Baghdad using a retrospective analysis of accidents that occurred from 2006–2016 taking into consideration the following parameters: the cause of the accident, the genders of the victims, the number and type of vehicles involved in the accident, the time of the accident, the severity of the accident, the type of accident and the age group of the driver(s). The data were been obtained from the Central Statistical Organization in the Ministry of Planning. The results reveal that 12,019 RTAs occurred in the city of Baghdad; on average, 1,092 RTAs occurred each year. Twenty-two percent of the RTAs resulted in death, 67% resulted in injury and 6% resulted in both deaths and injuries. Only 4% of the RTAs resulted in property damage without victims. To this end, Baghdad has the highest prevalence of RTAs of all Iraqi governorates. These results provide scientific evidence to mobilize road authorities to effectively and urgently develop adequate traffic strategies and policies to reduce the epidemic of RTAs in Baghdad as well as other Iraqi governorates.

The realization of the nexus between morphological changes and road intersection performances remains a challenge in urban studies. Despite the effort spent on minimizing the traffic associated problems (such as congestion and delay) in urban intersections, namely using roundabouts, signalized intersections, and actuated traffic signal controls, there are still traffic performance inefficiencies within intersections. Traffic congestion in the intersection arises for two reasons, namely by densification formed in the surrounding area and by the lack of effective traffic management. In this paper, a morphological analytical approach was adopted to explain the urban intersection changes for a 1 sq. km study area within Jadriyah neighborhood. The study spans three historical phases (1999, 2009, and 2019) and describes the changes to urban morphology by integrating land-use development with traffic data. Problems regarding urban variation in this prominent intersection were measured and then compared in terms of the Level-of-Service (LOS). The deployment of measurement and analytical methods include two sets of measurements: firstly, the study of the morphology of urban form structures, and secondly the data analysis of volume, pedestrian movement, saturation flow, and signal timing during peak hours whilst counting the daily trips generated for each type of changed land use pattern. Analysis of the collected data revealed that the ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dhirgham Alobaydi is Chair in the Department of Architecture Engineering at the University of Baghdad. Many of his research projects and publications have focused on the morphological developments of the Iraqi metropolis; particularly the urban form and spatial structures.Hasan Al-Mosawe is a university lecturer in Al-Nahrain University -civil engineering department, his research interest is transport and highway design and material analysis.Amjad Al-Bayati is a professor in the civil engineering department at the university of Baghdad and the director of consulting engineering bureau at the university. His research interest is traffic characteristics and highway design and material sustainability.