Purpose
This study aims to investigate the safety and liability of autonomous vehicles (AVs), and identify the contributing factors quantitatively so as to provide potential insights on safety and liability of AVs.
Design/methodology/approach
The actual crash data were obtained from California DMV and Sohu websites involved in collisions of AVs from 2015 to 2021 with 210 observations. The Bayesian random parameter ordered probit model was proposed to reflect the safety and liability of AVs, respectively, as well as accommodating the heterogeneity issue simultaneously.
Findings
The findings show that day, location and crash type were significant factors of injury severity while location and crash reason were significant influencing the liability.
Originality/value
The results provide meaningful countermeasures to support the policymakers or practitioners making strategies or regulations about AV safety and liability.
Exploring the heterogeneity of factors influencing the severity of electric bicycle crashes and electric motorcycle crashes can help target accident prevention policies to improve traffic safety. Therefore, this paper establishes a mean heterogeneity random parameter logit model using crash data from 2016 to 2020 in Guangxi to explore the different factors influencing the severity of crashes involving electric motorcycles and electric bicycles. The results show that the key influences on crash severity differ in electric motorcycle crashes and electric bicycle crashes. At the same time, some common factors affect the two types of crashes to different degrees. In addition, the complex interaction effects of unobserved heterogeneity were considered to explore the random parameters of the two types of crashes. The effect of unobserved heterogeneity on the distribution characteristics of the random parameters was then determined. For example, in electric motorcycle crashes, street lighting at night has a random parameter characteristic. The likelihood of serious crashes decreased when both street lighting at night and vehicle left turn were involved, and decreased when both street lighting at night and no signal control were involved. In electric bicycle crashes, large trucks have a random parameter characteristic. The likelihood of serious crashes increased when both large trucks and motor vehicle lights not turned on were involved, and increased when both large trucks and visibility less than or equal to 200 meters were involved. The results provide a basis for improving the road safety of electric motorcycles and electric bicycles.
This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. Approval of all ethical and experimental procedures and protocols was granted by the Guilin Public Security Bureau Traffic Police Detachment.
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