Identifying the Hot Spot Areas of Road Traffic Accidents

The road traffic accident is caused by several factors associated with the traffic system: road users, road environment and vehicles. This study was carried out to analyze the road traffic accidents by applying GIS to identify hot spot sites of road traffic accidents along Bahir Dar to Gondar road. The accident data for the years 2008-2011 were collected from pertinent police stations along the routes. A total of 460 reported accidents were collected. Google Earth and digital maps were used to fix accident locations. Twenty five accident hot spot sites were identified in traffic accident analysis using Kernel Density estimation method, a 10-m Lixel length and 50-m search width. Around Bahir Dar, on average, one hot spot site was found for 1.3 km road length. On the other hand, around Libokemkem, on average, one hot spot site was found for 38.1 km road length. This was the safest portion of the Bahir Dar to Gondar route. The findings have indicated that pedestrians were by far subjected to the highest number of casualties represented in killed or seriously injured persons, followed by passengers and drivers. The most productive age was more vulnerable to traffic accidents for the past three years