traffic accidents analysis along east – coast expressway

TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS ANALYSIS ALONG EAST –
COAST EXPRESSWAY
Intan Suhana Mohd.Razelan
Shahril Faiz Abd. Manaf
Azlina Ismail
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Earth Resources
Universiti Malaysia Pahang

Road Accidents Trend
• According to United Nation report in year 2005,
traffic accidents had taken 6,000 lives in
Malaysia and cost us RM1.5 billion of loss in
terms of productivity, medical cost, property
damage and other expenses.
• According to PDRM, total road accidents and
fatalities in Malaysia from year 1990-2004
showed a relieving result with fatalities
percentage has a major decreased from 4.6% in
year 1990 to only 1.8% in year 2004.

Ops Sikap Report (Death / day)
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Source : JKJR

Malaysia’s Target for Year 2010
Source : MIROS

What other researchers found..
• Eckhardt, N., Thomas, I. (2004) : characteristic of the environment
and the roads significantly influence the occurrence of road
accidents ; road users do not adapt their behavior sufficiently to
changes in road conditions.
• Abdul Kareem (2003) : lack of attention, reckless driving, lack of
proper protection, speeding, bad personal habits, social and
behavioral misconduct and inconsiderate drivers of larger vehicle
are some of the problems that caused accidents in Malaysia.
• Azmani, W., et al (2005) : Uneven surface of road seemed to
expose the road users to the risk of accidents although the road was
just opened to the public. Even a small errors of design such as in
curve super elevations may lead the vehicle to lose it’s control
especially during high speed.

Objectives of Study
• The main objectives of this study are..
– to analyze and produce a traffic accidents
trends for East-Coast Expressway for year
2004 until year 2007
– identify the most critical district and black spot
area within district that recorded the highest
number of road traffic accidents along East –
Coast Expressway.

East Coast Expressways
• The East Coast Expressway is a 350 km (217 mile)-long, closed
toll, 4-lane expressway (2 per direction) beginning from the end
of the Kuala Lumpur – Karak Expressway in Karak, Pahang and
ends at Chendering near Kuala Terengganu.
• The length of phase 1 is 160 km (99.4 miles) and runs
from Kuala Lumpur – Karak Expressway through
Lanchang, Mentakab, Temerloh, Chenor, Maran, Kuantan
and ends at the Pahang-Terengganu border near Jabur.

Research Area - East Coast
Expressway

Numbers of road traffic accidents along East-
Coast Expressway from 2004-2007
District
Number of Accidents in Years
2004 2005 2006 2007
Total number
of accidents
Kuantan 93 237 281 350 961
Maran 77 233 276 283 869
Temerloh 95 196 215 207 713
Bentong
16 50 66
111 243
Total 281 716 838 951 2786

Accidents Facts Along ECE
• Kuantan districts is always on the top ranking on number
of road accidents cases starting from year 2004 until
year 2007 followed by Maran, Temerloh and lastly
Bentong.
• Total of 2786 numbers of traffic accidents within 41
months of its operation period (the expressway opened
for public in August 2004), this expressway has
experienced about 68 numbers of accidents per
months .

Number of Fatal Accidents
14
13
12
10
10
8
7
8
8
6
6
6
5
6
4
3
3
3
2
2
1
0
0
2004 2005 2006 2007
0
Kuantan Maran Temerloh Bentong

Number of Accidents with Deaths
25
25
20
15
14
11
12
10
5
0
4
4
6
0
8
7
5
2
8
1
3
0
2004 2005Year
2006 2007
Kuantan Maran Temerloh Bentong

Numbers of Accidents with Severe
Injuries
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2004 2005 2006 2007
Year
Kuantan Maran Temerloh Bentong

Number of Accidents with Slight
Injuries
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2004 2005 2006 2007
Year
Kuantan Maran Temerloh Bentong

Maran vs. Temerloh
• The numbers of accidents with severe injuries shows
dramatic changes with the highest number of victim were
generated from Maran district.
• This is quite surprising as most of the fatal accidents and
accidents with deaths happened in Temerloh district.
• This data widely revealed that most of the accidents
happened within Maran district rarely led to deaths but
only caused severe injuries to the victims compared to
accidents happened within Temerloh district that most of
the accidents will bring deaths to the victims (Year 2006:
2 accidents/km in Maran)

Numbers
Accidents Prone Area
350
350
300
250
237
233
281
276
283
200
150
100
50
0
93
77
Years
2004 2005 2006 2007
Bentong
Temerloh
Maran
Kuantan

Accidents Prone Area
• Kuantan district is the highest compared to
another district. Although in year 2004 until year
2006, the number of accident cases in Kuantan,
Maran and Temerloh District were quite similar
but in year 2007, the number of accident cases
occurred within Kuantan District were having a
huge jump by leaving all the other 3 districts far
behind.

Number of Accident Cases between Gambang and
Kuantan Interchange( within Kuantan District)
50
40
30
20
10
0
217 -
218.9
219 -
220.9
221 -
222.9
223 -
224.9
225 -
226.9
227 -
228.9
229 -
230.9
231 -
232.9
233 -
234.9
235 -
236.9
237 -
238.9
Road Sections

Accidents Prone Area
• 49 number of accident cases has been recorded
for a section starting from KM 219 until KM
220.9 which makes the differences of about 40
number of accident cases when compared to the
‘safest’ section along this stretch which is
between 237 until 238.9 (there are 9 accident
were recorded along KM 237 until KM 238.9).
• This figure was quite extreme as for this section
alone, the ratio of accidents per kilometers has
becomes 20 accidents in each kilometer.

Conclusions
• Unsuitable geometric designs that caused an
uneven road surface were suspected to be one
of the major causes contributing to this problem.
• Bad weather conditions such as raining worsen
the condition and the situation is uncontrollable.
• This study were conducted mainly to make all
road users realizes that the ‘age’ and roads
design standard doesn’t reflects it’s reliability in
terms of safety