Student Members: Moro Bamber, Youji Seto, Nemed Aleman
Faculty Advisors: Dr. Vinod Vasudevan, Dr. Frank Witmer
Introduction:
The goal of this project was to analyze factors associated with automobile crashes across different regions of Alaska. Alaska’s unique characteristics, ranging from its remote wilderness to the densely traveled roads of urban areas, present distinct challenges. Our analysis aimed to identify contributing factors of crashes that could indicate the region where they occurred and analyze the severity of resulting injuries. Additionally, we developed a web application to store and filter crash data. This platform allows users to apply the machine learning techniques we utilized in our analysis and uncover new insights themselves.
Alaska offers a unique opportunity to explore the factors contributing to car crashes across the state. Urban areas are highly car-dependent, with driving conditions often deteriorating even on the busiest roads. Meanwhile, rural regions range from suburban landscapes to some of the most remote areas imaginable. Across the state, environmental challenges create significant obstacles for drivers, highlighting the diverse conditions Alaskans face behind the wheel.
Future Research:
Our research expanded on work done by Lydia Stark and Cale Cornichuck in 2022 for their capstone project. Our research focused mainly on the differences in crash characteristics between urban, suburban, and rural areas. When discussing our research with Anna Bosin from the DoT she suggested looking into the characteristics of the vehicles involved in crashes. Also, during our poster board session, the most common questions raised pertained to the vehicles involved in crashes. We realized that there is great interest in what types of vehicles get in certain types of crashes. We see future research in the arena of crash characteristics pertaining to different types of vehicles. Our dataset contains a few of these elements that could be analyzed, those being vehicle body type, model year, and model of vehicle. Combining these attributes of a crash with vehicle data from the DMV could lead to interesting insights into car crashes in Alaska.
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