Operating Speed of Vehicles During Rainfall at Night: Case Study in Pontian, Johor

Abstract

Speed is one of the important parameters of traffic flow that can be used to determine the performance of driver’s behaviour under various scenarios. Changes in weather conditions caused changes in drivers’ speed due to various reasons. In Malaysia, there is slightly high number of road accidents at night. Rainfall at night does not only cause poor visibility to drivers, but it also gives a sense of insecurity especially as there is a significant reduction in the visibility of the object in front. Improper road conditions can worsen the situation, for example, rainfall can cause water accumulation on road surfaces which can increase skidding problem, potholes and hydroplaning effect. In relation to these situations, hence it is crucial to understand how the abrupt situation affect response of driver’s in terms of the macroscopic behaviour. These unpredictable environmental changes seem like portraying a very unpleasant journey for drivers especially to travel under rainfall condition at night. Therefore, there is a need to observe how individual vehicles react in terms of speed adjustment and response to the different rainfall intensities downpour at night. Hence this study was conducted to determine the impact of different rainfall intensities at night on vehicles’ speed. Traffic data was obtained using automatic traffic counter at a cross section of a road at Pengkalan Raja, Pontian for about three months during monsoon season. Rainfall data report was obtained from the Department of Drainage and Irrigation, Pontian. From this study, it was found that there is a speed reduction from the dry condition regardless of rainfall intensities at night. As rainfall intensities at night higher, the speed reduction is higher as well except for heavy rainfall condition. The mean speed, 15th percentile and 85th percentile of vehicles decrease with the increase in rainfall intensity at night. It can be concluded that rainfall have impact on vehicle’s speed irrespective of their intensities. Findings from this study can be used to help local authorities and transport planners in planning an efficient traffic management system for a safer travel experience to road users in Malaysia.

Driver Behavior Profiling and Recognition Using Deep-Learning Methods: In Accordance with Traffic Regulations and Experts Guidelines

“…Previous studies in Malaysia collected driving data using surveys/question naires [24,25,32,33,35,36,38], observations [21][22][23][27][28][29][30]37] and simulations [26,34]. Most of these techniques have been criticized for being biased [2][3][4][5]13,14,72].…”

“…2014 Observations [21][22][23] 2015 Questionnaire [24,25] 2015 Simulations [26] 2015 Observations [27] 2016 Observations [28][29][30] 2017 Non-naturalistic experiments [31] 2018 Questionnaire [32,33] 2018 Simulations [34] 2019 Questionnaire [35,36] 2020 Observations [37] 2020 Questionnaire [38] In previous publications outside of Malaysia, experts were consulted to identify aggressive behaviors. Japan's risk consultants assigned scores to aggressive behaviors in [40].…”

Design of Optical Collimator System for Vehicle Speed Gun using Non-Imaging Optics

“…The extended application for the nighttime condition is used by adding the illuminator which can use efficient energy in a compact battery. In the field of estimating the speed of cars in nighttime condition, there is few studies come from Setiyono et al (2021), Hassan et al (2016), Dharhir et al (2019), and Abdelwahed et al (2022, etc. Although there are few studies on the estimation of speed guns at nighttime, however, almost focus on data analysis and image processing to detect the speed of the vehicle.…”

Synergistic Influence of Rainstorm and Waterlogging on Drivers’ Driving Behavior—An Experimental Study Based on High-Fidelity Driving Simulator

“…The characteristics of traffic flow can be analyzed after coupling traffic data with meteorological data. In terms of the impact of rainfall on traffic flow, it can be seen that rainfall creates decreased vehicle speeds, and the speed reduction effect increases when the rainfall intensity is larger [7][8][9][10][11]. Similar effects still apply to traffic capacity when faced with rainfall, in that the traffic capacity is also inversely correlated with rainfall intensity [12][13][14][15].…”