Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20

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Safety Science
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

Development of a safety performance function for motorcycle accident

fatalities on Malaysian primary roads
Muhammad Marizwan Abdul Manan ⇑, Thomas Jonsson, András Várhelyi
Traffic and Roads Unit (Taffik och väg), Department of Technology and Society (Teknik och Samhälle), Faculty of Engineering (Lunds Tekniska Högskola), Lund University,
P.O. Box 118, John Ericssons väg 1, 22100 Lund, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study uses a generalized linear model approach, i.e. negative binomial regression, to develop a pre-
Received 21 November 2012 dictive model for motorcycle fatal accidents on Malaysian primary roads. For the modeling process, a
Received in revised form 17 April 2013 huge data inventory has been carried out, integrating the road geometry features, fatal accident records
Accepted 12 June 2013
and traffic censuses from 3 selected states for the past 3-year period. The results show that motorcycle
fatalities per kilometer on primary roads are statistically significantly affected by the average daily num-
ber of motorcycles and the number of access points per kilometer. The model established for this study
Keywords:
can also be regarded as the first motorcycle safety performance function in Malaysia and probably in Asia.
Motorcycle accident fatalities
Safety performance function
Also noted in this study is the need to establish a proper and systematic road geometry and traffic census
Negative binomial regression inventory in order to develop better accident prediction models for Malaysia in the future.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Malaysian primary roads are hazardous for motorcyclists. Stud-

Any research related to motorcycle fatalities in Malaysia would
best represent those countries where motorcycles account for
more than 25% of registered vehicles and reported accident fatali-
ties. According to Table 1, these countries are mostly from Asia (e.g.
China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, etc.), South America (e.g. Colom-
bia and Suriname) and Africa (e.g. Mauritius). Of these, Malaysian
data is close to the average, i.e. 47% of registered vehicles are
motorcycles and 58% of the victims of reported accident fatalities
are motorcyclists (WHO, 2009). Despite Malaysia’s low ranking
position in the category of road fatalities per 100,000 registered
vehicles (12th) and motorcycle fatalities per 100,000 registered
motorcycles (10th), it still has the highest road fatalities per
100,000 population among these countries (WHO, 2009). More-
over, for the 8-year period (2002–2009), road fatalities in Malaysia
showed a steady increase of 4% per year and rose to 6745 in 2009
(Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012). In 2009 alone, motorcycle fatal-
ities reached 4070, which is the highest in the 10-year period
(2000–2009) (Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012). Thus, alleviating
Malaysia’s problems regarding motorcycle accident fatalities
would set a prime example for other countries that face similar
problems.
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 046 222 9125 (O), +46 076 233 5775 (HP); fax:
+46 046 222 9100.
E-mail addresses: mmarizwan@gmail.com, marizwan.manan@tft.lth.se (M.M.
Abdul Manan), thomas.jonsson@tft.lth.se (T. Jonsson), andras.varhelyi@tft.lth.se (A.
Várhelyi).
ies have revealed that motorcyclists are the victims in more than
50% of the road accident fatalities in Malaysia; 62% of the total
motorcycle accident fatalities (MCAF) occurred on primary roads
(Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012; Radin Umar, 1994). Sixty per-
cent of the roads in Malaysia are primary roads, which are partially
access-controlled, mostly non-segregated or single carriageway,
with intrinsically dangerous features, e.g. trees, open culverts and
access roads to rural houses and plantations (Hsu et al., 2003;
PWD, 2009; Tung et al., 2008). As a result, there are more MCAF
per 100 km of primary roads than on secondary roads, local streets
and minor roads combined (Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012). In
addition to this glaring problem, MCAF on Malaysian primary roads
are overrepresented in that motorcycles only constitute 20–25%
(HPU, 2009) of the total traffic composition on such roads.
Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) are not only good tools for
use in road safety analysis; they also help in understanding the
importance of contributing factors to motorcycles fatalities. SPF
is a mathematical function that relates the expected crash
frequency of a roadway element, such as a road segment, to the
traffic volume and other characteristics of that element (Jonsson
et al., 2009). This function has been adopted successfully for the
past 10 years (Garber et al., 2010; Hauer et al., 2002) in identifying
sites with the largest potential for safety improvement in order to
achieve the greatest possible safety benefit on roads and highways
(Tegge et al., 2006). SPFs are calibrated from data by statistical
techniques, with the assumption that the accident data counts
are from a negative binomial distribution (Hauer et al., 2002).
Despite the fact that the application of SPF is very successful, it is

0925-7535/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2013.06.005
14 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20

generally applied to all vehicles and there have been no attempts
to implement SPF specifically for motorcycles.
The aim of this paper is to develop a predictive model, i.e. SPF,
solely for fatal motorcycle accidents on primary roads in Malaysia,
which in turn can be modeled by other countries with motorcycle
fatality problems similar to Malaysia’s.
2. Literature review
Earlier accident models are regression-based models, initially
developed by using multiple or normal linear regression. These
models assume a normal error structure for the response variable,
a constant variance for the residuals, and a linear relationship be-
tween the response and explanatory variables (Ceder and Livneh,
1982). However, many studies have indicated that road accidents
on a highway section are discrete, non-negative, and rare events,
and as a result multiple linear regressions are not suitable for such
cases (Karlaftis and Golias, 2002). Moreover, due to the discrete
and non-negative characteristics of accidents, it is well known that
the use of linear regressions could lead to biased estimates for
accident prediction models (Maher and Summersgill, 1996). To
overcome these limitations, several researchers have suggested
Poisson regression models as the first choice for modeling count
data (Lord et al., 2005; Miaou, 1994; TARC, 2009).
Using the Poisson regression model requires that the mean and
variance of the accident frequency (the response variable) are
equal (Maher and Summersgill, 1996). On the other hand, in most
accident data, the variance of the accident frequency exceeds the
mean and causes the data to be over-dispersed (Elvik, 2003; Hauer,
2010). This restriction (which, when violated, leads to invalid
t-tests of the parameter estimates), can be overcome with the
use of Negative Binomial regression, which allows the variance of
the dependent variable to differ from the mean (Karlaftis and
Golias, 2002). As a result, several recent authors (Ackaah and Salifu,
2011; Harnen et al., 2006; Maher and Summersgill, 1996; Ramírez
et al., 2009; Shankar et al., 1996) have found that a negative bino-
mial distribution has proven to be more preferable for certain
types of accident models especially when relating to road traffic
properties.
There are several studies where negative binomial models have
been utilized as a means to investigate the relation between acci-
dents and road and traffic properties (road geometry, road type,
traffic volume, etc.). For example, Shankar et al. (1995) used the
negative binomial model to seek interactions between weather
and road geometric variables with road accidents (Shankar et al.,
1995). Ramírez et al. (2009) utilized negative binomial models to
analyze the influence of traffic conditions, i.e. volume and compo-
sition of accidents on different types of interurban roads in Spain
(Ramírez et al., 2009). Chang (2005), through the use of the nega-
tive binomial model to evaluate freeway accident frequencies,
found out that a number of highway geometric variables may have
significantly influenced the freeway’s accident occurrence (Chang,
2005). Abdel-Aty and Radwan (2000) illustrated the significance of
the Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT), degree of horizontal
curvature, lane, shoulder and median widths, urban/rural charac-
teristics, and the section’s length on the frequency of accident
occurrence by using the negative binomial model (Abdel-Aty and
Radwan, 2000). In another example of the use of negative binomial
models, the authors found that traffic flow, highway segment
length, junction density, terrain type and presence of a village set-
tlement within road segments were statistically significant explan-
atory variables for crash involvement (Ackaah and Salifu, 2011).
Research on accident prediction models specifically for motor-
cycles is still limited worldwide, and especially in Malaysia. There
are only two prominent accident-modeling studies, specifically
targeting motorcycles: one by Harnen et al. (2006) where the
authors develop an accident prediction model, via a generalized
linear model, for motorcycle accidents at junctions on urban roads
in Malaysia. Their model reveals that motorcycle accidents are pro-
portional to the power of traffic flow, and the estimates indicate
that an increase in non-motorcycles and motorcycles entering
the junction is associated with an increase in motorcycle accidents
(Harnen et al., 2006). The other study, by Radin Umar et al. (2000),
uses multivariate analysis of the impact of the exclusive motor-
cycle lane on motorcycle accidents along a major primary road in
Malaysia (Federal Highway Route 2). They find that motorcycle
accidents are directly proportional to the cubic power of traffic
flow, and are reduced by approximately thirty-nine percent (39%)
with the existence of motorcycle lanes (Radin Umar et al., 2000).
Hence, with the limited research done on predicting motorcycle
accidents, especially on Malaysian primary roads, and most of it
more than 10 years old, the need for this kind of research is
obvious.
3. Method
In order to analyze the fatal accident frequency, k, the distribu-
tion model of the number of fatalities, Y, is first discussed. Let Yi
denote the number of fatalities occurring on a specific road site
during a given time period. If we assume that the number of

Table 1
Worldwide road traffic fatality data from countries with a share of registered motorcycles more than 25% (Jacobs et al., 2000; Li et al., 2008; WHO, 2009).

No. Country Pop. Registered (2007) No. Reported (2007) Road fatalities per MC fatalities per 100,000
(Million) registered MC (traffic risk for MC)
No. Vehicle MC Road traffic MC 100,000 100,000 Registered
(2007)
(million) (%) fatalities fatalities Population (health vehicles (traffic risk)
(%) risk)
1 Vietnam 87.4 23.00 95 12,800 80.0 14.6 55.8 47.0
2 Cambodia 14.4 0.15 84 1545 63.0 10.7 1000.7 (1) 750.5
3 Lao P.D.R. 5.9 0.64 79 608 80.0 10.4 94.8 96.0
4 Indonesia 231.6 63.30 73 16,548 61.0 7.1 26.1 21.8
5 India 1169.0 72.70 71 105,725 27.0 9.0 145.4 (3) 55.3
6 Nepal 28.2 0.62 69 962 38.0 3.4 155.8 (2) 85.8
7 Taiwan 22.7 19.80 67 2894 54.0 12.7 14.6 11.8
8 Thailand 63.9 25.60 63 12,492 70.0 19.6 (3) 48.8 54.2
9 China 1336.3 145.20 51 5565 45.0 3.4 105.3 33.8
10 Pakistan 163.9 5.29 51 89,455 28.0 6.7 61.6 92.9
11 Philippines 88.0 5.52 48 1185 37.0 1.3 21.5 16.6
12 Malaysia 26.6 16.82 47 6282 58.0 23.6 (1) 37.3 (12) 46.1 (10)
13 Mauritius 1.3 0.33 43 140 36.0 11.1 41.9 35.1
14 Colombia 46.2 4.95 39 5409 36.0 11.7 109.2 100.8
15 Suriname 0.5 0.15 27 90 31.0 19.7 (2) 59.4 68.2
⁄
Data from 2006, ( ) Ranking within category, MC: Motorcycle.
 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20 15

Table 2
Type of data considered.

No. Type of data Description of content Source (see reference)

1. Motorcycle accident fatalities 1. Data from year 2007 to 2009 (ADSA, 2011; PDRM, 2007; PDRM, 2008; PDRM,
2. Location of fatal accident by state, district, route number, type of 2009)
land use, type of road hierarchy and type of road geometry
2. Road traffic volume on each 1. Average daily traffic volume of cars, heavy vehicles and (HPU, 2007, 2008, 2009)
section of Malaysian primary motorcycles
roads
3. Road statistics and inventory of 1. Route number (PWD, 2009)
all primary roads 2. Road length for each route
3. Location of route by state and district
4. Road properties: road width and existence of paved shoulders
4. Road geometry features 1. Number of lanes (HPU, 2007, 2008, 2009; PWD, 1986) and Google
2. Number of curves and straight sections per km. Earth and Google Maps from year 2002 until 2010
3. Number of access roads, minor roads, junctions and intersec-
tions per km
4. Existence of road median
5. Land use: residential, commercial or industrial area

fatalities follows a Poisson distribution with expected value, and
thus variance, equal to ki, the probability that the number of fatal-
ities during this period will be equal to yi, may be written as
y samples in order to minimize time and resources. From these three
ki i  expðki Þ
PðY i ¼ yi Þ ¼ where i ¼ 0; 1; 2; 3 . . .
yi !
Accident data may not always have equal mean and variance; it
could be either under-dispersed i.e. mean greater than variance, or
over-dispersed i.e. mean less than variance (Hiselius, 2004; Maher
and Summersgill, 1996). In other words, ki is not the same at all
sites and there will usually be a variation of the ki around a mean,
k. To overcome this, the negative binomial distribution, which in-
cludes a gamma-distributed (j) error term is appropriate to denote
the probability distribution of accidents (Shankar et al., 1995). The
Negative Binomial distribution probability function and variance
(r) for Y are written as
 j  y
Cðj þ yÞ j j example, comparing Malaysian accident statistics to a highly
PðY ¼ yÞ ¼ where y
CðjÞy! j þ k jþk
¼ 0; 1; 2; 3; . . .
k2
r2 ¼ k þ
j
To analyze accident frequency, there is a need for a regression mod-
el that can describe the variation properly (Elvik, 2003; Hiselius,
2004). An exponential function is a common formulation, since this
function ensures that the expected number of accidents is a positive
number (Hiselius, 2004). Thus, accident frequency may be written
as a multiplicative function for which the value of the exponents
can be estimated directly by measuring the explanatory variables
on the logarithmic scale, i.e. Eq. (3).
EðYÞ ¼ exp½Rbi lnðX i Þ
where b is the coefficient estimation and Xi are the independent
variables, e.g. road traffic properties such as ADT and number of
curves or junctions
3.1. Empirical setting
The literature on the development of road accident prediction
models, reviewed in the previous section, suggests a number of
variables that could explain variations in accident occurrence and
casualties. The lack of road geometry and land use data, for exam-
ple number of curves, access points, commercial and residential
areas, etc., meant that we had to manually collect this information
by means of reference to satellite photos and various maps from
the Malaysian road authorities. Hence, we have chosen three states
(Perak, Selangor and Johor), which have the best available data, as
ð1Þ states, we have managed to collect a large amount of data pertain-
ing to road geometry and land use from 124 road sections. Next,
we have matched and integrated it with the 3-year fatal accident
data, i.e. reported within 30 days after a crash, and the traffic cen-
sus for every road section.
We have noted that the motorcycle accident fatality data col-
lected straight from the police was not homogeneous in terms of
collision type. This is because identifying motorcycle collision
types, i.e. single-motorcycle and multi-vehicle accidents, from
the police database is difficult due to the inconsistencies of data
entry and illegible description found in the accident recording
forms. Fatal accident data is used simply because the injury data
is critically underreported (Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012). For
developed motorized country like Sweden, it can be concluded that
ð2Þ there are 9 severe injuries for each fatality in the Swedish statistics,
while there are only 1.4 severe injuries per fatality according to the
Malaysian statistics (Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012).
Table 2 shows the types of data obtained for this study for the
study period of 2007–2009. For the purpose of constructing the
model, we have chosen our dependent variable to be Motorcycle
accident fatalities per kilometer to represent the motorcycle fatality
rate on Malaysian primary roads. The rest of the data is categorized
as independent variables and divided into continuous and categor-
ical data as seen in Table 3. Statistical software, i.e. SPSS ver. 19, has
been used for developing the model.
As seen in Table 3, the size of the sample for this study is 372,
i.e. 124 road sections times 3 years. These road sections are pri-
ð3Þ mary roads located within the boundaries of the selected states;
they vary from 1.61 km to 86.10 km in length and have non-homo-
geneous road features, i.e. different lane configurations and avail-
ability of median and paved shoulders. We note that there is at
least 1 motorcycle fatal accident on each road section and a
maximum of 29 fatal accidents on one of the sections. We also note
that these road sections traverse many different land uses, but the
majority of these are in rural areas with many small access roads.
For the purpose of this study, we have defined an access road as a
three-legged priority control junction that serves to connect the
main road, i.e. primary road, to a minor road leading into planta-
tions, factories or villages.
Next, a Pearson correlation matrix is used to investigate
whether some independent variables are strongly correlated with
16 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20

Table 3
Descriptive statistics of variables.

Continuous variables N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. deviation Unit

Statistic
Motorcycle fatalities 372 1 29 4.712 4.058 Number
Motorcycle fatalities per km 372 0.010 3.7 0.366 0.448 Number/km
Section length 372 1.61 86.10 19.19 13.273 km
No. of access points 372 3 901 164.073 132.438 Number
No. of curves 372 0 365 25.798 41.371 Number
No. of minor intersections 372 0 36 6.307 5.363 Number
No. of towns 372 0 6 1.605 1.171 Number
No. of residential areas 372 2 31 12.177 6.844 Number
No. of industrial areas 372 0 35 8.194 5.851 Number
No. of commercial areas 372 1 36 10.105 6.627 Number
Average Daily Traffic (ADT) 372 755 193,190 23,597 28,887 Vehicles/day
Percent of cars 372 38.2 83 64.622 8.337 %
Percent of heavy vehicles 372 2.7 39.8 15.143 6.834 %
Percent of motorcycles 372 7.5 47.9 20.234 7.394 %
Categorical variables Description N Percent
Lane configuration 2 lanes 240 64.5
4 lanes 42 11.3
6 lanes 12 3.2
2 and 4 lanes 63 16.9
4 and 6 lanes 15 4.0
Total 372 100.0
Median Not divided 252 67.7
Divided 60 16.1
Divided on certain stretches 60 16.1
Total 372 100.0
Paved shoulder Unpaved shoulder 213 57.3
Paved shoulder 117 31.5
Paved on certain stretches 42 11.3
Total 372 100.0

each other. This is because strong correlation between indepen-
dent variables in regressions could lead to difficulties in the inter-
pretation of parameter estimates, as it might strongly affect the
other model parameters (Abdel-Aty and Radwan, 2000; Maher
and Summersgill, 1996). In this study, we have set our correlation
value (Pearson correlation) acceptance to be less than 0.5. As can
be seen in Table 4, there is a strong correlation between indepen-
dent variables that affects the models i.e., number of towns with
residential, commercial and minor junctions, number of residential
with commercial, number of industrials with commercial, number of
commercial with minor intersection, and percent cars with heavy
vehicles, and thus they are excluded from the modeling formulation
process. The correlated independent variables, such as ADT, ADT of
cars and ADT of motorcycles, were incorporated during the model-
ing computation, but were not included together in any of the indi-
vidual trials. This is because the three ADT-variables are almost
perfectly correlated with each other. Therefore adding more than
one of them would not add to the quality of the models (Washing-
ton et al., 2003). In fact, having two of them at the same time
makes the whole model non-significant.
From Eq. (3), we expect our prediction model to have a final
form as follows;
b biþ1
½expðln X i Þ i  ½expðln X iþ1 Þ 
MCFatal=km ¼ expðb0 Þ 
continuous
½expðX i Þbi  ½expðX iþ1 Þbiþ1   
 ð4Þ
categorical
or in another term:
b b
X i i  X iþ1
iþ1

MCFatal=km ¼ expðb0 Þ 
continuous
expðX i bi Þ  expðX iþ1 biþ1 Þ   
 ð5Þ
categorical
Table 5 shows the selected variables to be included into the
regression process. The authors note that the dependent variable
proposed (Motorcycle fatalities per kilometer) is put back into
Motorcycle fatalities in order to be computed into SPSS. However,
introducing an offset variable (Length, km) in the fitting process
into SPSS means that the final model yields the number of Motor-
cycle fatalities per kilometer. This method is similar to the one used
by Harnen et al. (2006). Moreover, as seen in Table 5, some of the
variables have undergone transformation, i.e. Logarithmic compu-
tation, Ln, in order to suit the formulation of Eq. (4). On the other
hand, we also introduce several interaction variables, e.g. LnCur-
ve_per_km  LnADTMC or LnAccess_per_km  LnADT, in order to
have additional insights into the contributory factors.
Using SPSS software ver. 19, the generalized linear model, i.e.
negative binomial with log link analysis, is performed for this study.
The response variable for the model is set as MCFatal and the
predictors are set for Lane_config, Median and Paved_shoulder as
‘factors’ while LnAccess_per_km, LnCurve_per_km, LnADTMC, LnADT
and/or interaction variables are set as ‘covariates’. Categorical vari-
ables are included in the model using so-called ‘dummy variables’
where x takes the value of 1 if it belongs to the specific category, or
0 if it does not. One category level is used as the reference level and
the others are represented by using a ‘dummy’, yielding as many
dummy variables as number of category levels minus one. As men-
tioned previously, LnLength is set as an ‘offset variable’ and one of
the predictors. As for the model estimation, we have chosen the
‘Hybrid’ method with the scale parameter method of ‘Person chi-
square’. We have also selected ‘Type I and III’ as the analysis type,
while the Chi-square Statistics are set as ‘Wald’.
4. Model estimation
Various models have been generated for this study in order to
find a suitable prediction model that could represent motorcycle
 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20 17

fatalities on Malaysian primary roads. Several measures of good-

ness of fit were used (as shown in Table 6) and the variable that
ADT of

provided the overall best fit of the model was chosen. Out of the
MC

various models generated, we have narrowed down six (6) models

1
(see Table 6) that are overall statistically significant (p < 0.05),
based on the Omnibus test of the model as a whole (SPSS, 2007).
ADT of

0.913
Cars

Models 1, 2 and 3 have 1 common variable, which is LnADTMC,

1
whereas models 4, 5 and 6 have LnADT.

0.995
0.940
The coefficients in each model are estimated by means of max-
ADT

imum likelihood, which is performed by the statistical package

1
SPSS. The significance of each variable is examined by the Wald
No. of access per

chi square test at the 95% confident interval (Olsson, 2002). Models
1, 2, 4 and 5 are not suitable representations of this study. For mod-
0.016 els 1 and 4, none of the categorical variables are significant, i.e.
0.070
0.080

p > 0.05, as seen in Table 6. As for models 2 and 5, despite removing

km

some variables, there are still some that are not statistically signif-
icant. Moreover, we have also tried many combinations of interac-
tion variables in all the models, but, unfortunately, all of the
0.288
0.293
0.247
access
No. of

0.565

models with interaction variables also come out as not statistically

1

significant, i.e. p > 0.05.

0.137
0.105

In models 3 and 6 the number of variables has been reduced

0.135
0.232

0.094
% MC

until only statistically significant ones are left. All estimated coef-
1

ficients of variables for models 3 and 6 are statistically significantly

0.316

0.114
0.384

0.419
0.407

different from zero at the 5% level. The goodness-of-fit statistics (as

0.129
% HV

seen in Table 6) for these two models show that the models fit the
1

data very well. The Pearson Chi-square statistics divided by de-

Highlighted and Bold – Variables that are highly correlated with each other and not included at the same time (Pearson correlation > 0.5).
0.628
0.226
0.113
0.540

grees of freedom are estimated to be 0.872 and 0.821, respectively,

% Cars

0.456
0.408

0.260

for models 3 and 6, as shown in Table 5. In other words, the esti-

1

mated values of the Pearson Chi-square divided by the degrees of

freedom are within the permissible range (i.e. between 0.8 and
0.141

0.257
0.214

0.191
0.207
0.003
curves

1.2), indicating that the Negative Binomial distribution assumption

No. of

0.062
0.102

is acceptable (Bauer and Harwood, 2000). Models 3 and 6 can be

1

written as:

MCFatal=km ¼ expð4:891Þ  ADTMC 0:404

0:262
 Access per km ðModel 3Þ
intersections
No. of minor

0.141

0.104
0.071
0.067
0.084
0.124
0.057
0.083

0.093

MCFatal=km ¼ expð6:381Þ  ADT 0:477

Bold – One of the independent variables is included but not in combination with the other one.
1

0:316
 Access per km ðModel 6Þ
The Average Daily Traffic (LnADT) and Average Daily Traffic of
commercial

motorcycles (LnADTMC) are statistically significant (p < 0.05) with

0.049
0.104

0.027
0.011
0.020
No. of

0.319
0.530

0.079
0.045

0.060

positive estimated model parameters for both models. Both models

3 and 6 have one common variable, i.e. LnAccess_per_km with a
1

positive parameter value and a strong statistical significance. This

indicates that the fatal crash frequency increases with an increase
industrial

in the traffic flow or number of access points per kilometer. More-

0.128
0.061
0.180

0.140
0.105
No. of

0.552
0.472

0.178

0.278
0.199
0.038

over, both LnADT and LnADTMC are not strongly correlated (Pear-
1

son correlation < 0.07) with LnAccess_per_km, as seen in Table 4.

Both models correspond to the ‘Safety performance function’.
As stated earlier, SPF is a mathematical function that relates the ex-
residential

pected number of accidents (in this case; motorcycle fatalities per

0.116
0.079

0.120
0.108
0.001
No. of

0.399
0.842
0.447

0.466
0.087

0.097

0.014

MC – Motorcycle, ADT – average daily traffic.

kilometer) to a set of explanatory variables (Elvik, 2003). A safety

Pearson correlation of independent variables.

performance function, which is widely applied, can be written as

Eq. (6) (Elvik, 2003):
0.062

0.077
0.083
0.064
0.020
towns
No. of

0.592

0.644

0.396
0.480

0.608

0.097

0.097

0.052

EðkÞ ¼ aQ b  exp½Rjx ð6Þ

1

where Q measures exposure, i.e. traffic volume, raised to an expo-

No. of access per km

nent b. Exp is the exponential function, that is the base of natural

No. of commercial
No. of residential

% Heavy vehicles

logarithms raised to the sum of parameter estimates multiplied

No. of industrial

intersections
No. of curves

No. of access

by the relevant values of the explanatory variables, representing

No. of towns

No. of minor

ADT of Cars
ADT of MC

risk factors (Rjx) (Elvik and Vaa, 2004). Hence, for models 3 and
% Cars

6, the measure of exposure (Q) is ADTMC and ADT, respectively,

% MC
Table 4

ADT

while ‘Access per kilometer’ is the risk factor and Alpha (a) would
be the scaling constant from the models.
18 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20

Table 5
Variables computation and SPSS coding.

Category Variables SPSS labeling Computation/designation SPSS coding

Dependent Motorcycle fatalities Y MCFatal – –
Off-set Length per section – LnLength LnLength
Independent, continuous variables (covariates) No. of access X1 LnAccess_per_km Ln (X1/Length)
No. of curves X2 LnCurve_per_km LnX2
Percent of Motorcycle X4 LnADTMC Ln (ADT  X4/100)
ADT X5 LnADT LnX5
Independent, categorical variables (factors) Lane configuration X6 Lane_config 2 lanes 1
4 lanes 2
6 lanes 3
2 and 4 lanes 4
4 and 6 lanes 5
Median X7 Median Not divided 1
Divided 2
Divided on certain stretches 3
Paved shoulder X8 Paved_shoulder Unpaved shoulder 1
Paved shoulder 2
Paved on certain stretches 3

Table 6
Estimation results for various alternative models.

Parameter estimates Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

b p-Value b p-Value b p-Value b p-Value b p-Value b p-Value
(Intercept) 4.721 .000 4.665 .000 4.891 .000 6.798 .000 6.809 .000 6.381 .000
LnAccess_per_km .299 .000 .281 .001 .262 .001 .341 .000 .323 .000 .316 .000
LnCurve_per_km .039 .600 .040 .573
LnADTMC .379 .000 .369 .000 .404 .000
LnADT .528 .000 .533 .000 .477 .000
[Lane_config = 5.00] .375 .474 .319 .516 .795 .123 .992 .001
[Lane_config = 4.00] .082 .807 .119 .688 .107 .744 .313 .109
[Lane_config = 3.00] .454 .451 .905 .094 .009 .988 .235 .518
[Lane_config = 2.00] .481 .283 .456 .271 .251 .564 .047 .804
[Lane_config = 1.00] 0a . 0a . 0a . 0a .
[Median = 3.00] .364 .329 .254 .431 .288 .423
[Median = 2.00] .226 .623 .239 .575 .164 .710
[Median = 1.00] 0a . 0a . 0a .
[Paved_shoulder = 3.00] .136 .579 .155 .510 .114 .597
[Paved_shoulder = 2.00] .195 .116 .226 .056 .220 .058
[Paved_shoulder = 1.00] 0a . 0a . 0a .
Overdispersion Parameter (Scale) .801b .847b .872a .729b .734b .821a
Omnibus test df = 11 Sig. df = 8 Sig. df = 2 Sig. df = 11 Sig. df = 8 Sig. df = 2 Sig.
Likelihood ratio Chi-square 80.011 .000 79.296 .000 66.741 .000 108.275 .000 113.348 .000 86.028 .000
Goodness of fit df = 354 Value/df df = 363 Value/df df = 369 Value/df df = 354 Value/df df = 363 Value/df df = 369 Value/df
Value Value Value Value Value Value
Deviance 201.712 .570 207.846 .573 216.864 .588 186.910 .528 191.814 .528 204.440 .554
Pearson Chi-square 283.531 .801 307.634 .847 321.684 .872 257.914 .729 266.555 .734 302.857 .821
Akaike’s Info. Criterion (AIC) 1980.597 2009.561 2006.580 1965.794 1993.530 1994.155
Bayesian Info. Criterion (BIC) 2027.428 2044.831 2018.336 2012.626 2028.800 2005.911

Bold – indicates the lower value between models 3 and 6.

a
Set to zero because this parameter is redundant.
b
Computed based on the Pearson Chi-square.

Model 6 is statistically better than model 3 but both models can
be adequately accepted. The model’s goodness-of-fit for this study
is measured in term of Deviance, Pearson Chi-Square, Akaike’s
Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion
(BIC). The smaller the value, the better and more preferred the
model would be, i.e. best fitted model (Abdel-Aty and Radwan,
2000; Olsson, 2002; Shankar et al., 1996). Furthermore, AIC is often
used as a way of comparing several competing models, without
necessarily making any formal inference (Olsson, 2002). As seen
in Table 6, model 6 has a slightly lower value of Deviance, AIC
and BIC than model 3, thus showing that model 6 is considered
the model with the best statistical fit. However, based on the CURE
plot in Fig. 1, the data fits both models along the entire range of
values assumed by a variable. These particular CURE plots are
based on the Access per km variable due to the fact that both mod-
els share this variable. A good CURE plot is one which moves up
and down and oscillates around 0 (Hauer, 2004), as shown in
Fig. 1. Comparing both models, model 3 appears to be slightly clo-
ser, oscillating around 0 at 10–18 access points per km, which indi-
cates that it might be a better model than model 6 within a certain
range.
5. Discussion
The motorcycle accident fatality rate, i.e. fatalities per kilome-
ter, on Malaysian primary roads can be predicted via a negative
binomial regression model. Two of the six models tested have a
good statistical fit with highly significant predictors. Both share
one matching variable, i.e. access per kilometer (Access_per_km),
and each contains another variable, which is the Average Daily
Traffic (ADT) for Model 6 and the Average Daily Traffic of
 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20 19

Fig. 1. Cumulative residual plot (CURE) for Models 3 and 6.

in Table 7, because the relative proportions of different road users

Table 7 in traffic affect the number of accidents (Elvik and Vaa, 2004). This
Predictability comparison between Model 3 and Model 6 where access per kilometer shows that Model 3 is sensitive to the growth of traffic flow com-
and length are fixed.
position and thus suitable to be used when a primary road section
ADT ADTMC %MC MCFatal MCFatal |D| experiences a modal shift, i.e. cars to motorcycle. Moreover, if the
(model 3) (model 6) ADT grew larger (two times), the difference between Model 3 and
23,000 4600 20 (mean) 3.5 3.4 0.07 Model 6 predictions would be even bigger. In simple terms, model
5750 25 3.8 0.39 3 has the benefit of having the actual number of motorcyclists, in-
6900 30 4.1 0.68
stead of the total ADT as the ADT does not necessarily reflect the
8050 35 4.3 0.94
9200 40 4.6 1.18 number of motorcycles. Thus, model 3 is more logical.
10,350 45 (max) 4.8 1.41 The significance of having ‘access per kilometer’ in the models is
46,000 9200 20 (mean) 4.6 4.7 0.14 that it is vital in complementing the real scenario of motorcycle
11,500 25 5.0 0.29 fatalities on Malaysian primary roads. According to Elvik and Vaa
13,800 30 5.4 0.67 (2004), the number of access points has a major impact on accident
16,100 35 5.7 1.02 rates. Studies in Malaysia have shown that the most typical type of
18,400 40 6.1 1.33
20,700 45 (max) 6.3 1.63
fatal crash for Malaysian motorcyclists is the crossing course type
collision (27.5%), i.e. side or perpendicular angle crashes, with 28%
of those occurring with a car (Abdul Manan and Várhelyi, 2012)
motorcycle (ADTMC) for Model 3. The estimates for the models coming out from an access road and thus infringing upon the
indicate that an increase of access points per kilometer and the right-of-way (ROW) of the motorcyclist (Pai, 2011; Radin Umar,
average traffic volume, i.e. ADTMC and ADT, are highly associated 2005). This violation of the motorcyclist’s ROW could lead to
with an increase in motorcycle fatal accidents per kilometer. crashes into the side of the car (Pai, 2009; Radin Umar, 1999,
Although Model 6 is statistically better, both models prove to fit 2005); this type of accident, occurring mostly at access points, is
well in all ranges of the variables. known to be the most hazardous crash pattern for motorcyclists,
Traffic volume is the single most important factor that influ- i.e. stop-/yield-controlled junctions (Pai, 2009). Another study by
ences the number of road accidents (Elvik and Vaa, 2004; Hauer, Ackaah and Salifu (2011), which uses a similar approach to this
1985). Considering this fact, both models would be viable. Further- study, also acknowledges the importance of having ‘number of ac-
more, traffic flow variables affect the exposure of road users to cess points’ as one of the variables in predicting the number of
accident-prone situation (Jonsson, 2005). In relation to exposure, crashes. Therefore, the fact that this variable is regarded as one
if we take the ADT alone, both cars and motorcycles interact; of the major causes of motorcycle fatalities is certainly justified,
hence, which party affects the accident-prone situation is un- and an increase in the number of access points per kilometer will
known. On the other hand, if we take into account the ADT of increase the number of motorcycle fatalities. In other words, hav-
the motorcycle (ADTMC), we look at the level of exposure by mo- ing more access roads protruding into the primary road will in-
torcycle alone, i.e. direct exposure to risk. Another way of looking crease the risk of motorcycles facing cars entering from the
at this (as seen in Table 7), is that, in a scenario where a 10 km road access road.
section has 5 access points per kilometer, the predicted motorcycle It is worth mentioning that a few limitations in this study have
fatalities at a mean ADT would be 3.4 if Model 6 is used. Comparing thwarted our attempts to work efficiently and accurately on some
this to Model 3, and assuming motorcycle composition is 20% of occasions. First, the data collected from the police is not 100% accu-
the ADT, the predicted motorcycle fatalities would be 3.5. Thus, rate in terms of pinpointing the exact location of the fatal acci-
the difference in the fatality prediction for both models would dents. Most of the police database has identified the correct
not be much. However, if the motorcycle composition grew in route number per district and state; however, some fail to give
the same total ADT, the motorcycle fatality would increase, as seen the correct route number or assign it to a different district. This
20 M.M. Abdul Manan et al. / Safety Science 60 (2013) 13–20
data, which is up to 5% of the total, has had to be excluded. More-
over, we may assume that some unobserved heterogeneities exist
in our motorcycle accident fatality data, i.e. different fatal collision
types, such as single-motorcycle and multi-vehicle accidents. We
have tried to separate these, but there are too many discrepancies
in the police recording system for us to successfully identify and
separate these fatal collision types. For example, according to the
police, they sometimes record a single motorcycle accident as
‘not at fault’, ‘crashed out from the road’, ‘victim of hit and run’,
and most of the time they leave the collision type section empty.
Hence, in order to determine the exact motorcycle collision type,
we have had to look at the free text in the accident record form,
most of which is illegible. Second, the maps provided by the gov-
ernment agency, i.e. the Malaysian Highway Planning Unit, Public
Works Department, are not wholly accurate and complete in terms
of providing the geometric properties of the roads. Therefore, we
have had to opt for an alternative solution, such as relying on Goo-
gle Earth and local street maps (private source). Consequently, we
have not been able to obtain several vital variables such as speed
limits and road vertical profiles. This study reflects our realization
that Malaysia is in grave need of a proper system that stores and
categorizes all information pertaining to traffic censuses and cur-
rent road geometry of all primary roads in Malaysia, i.e. Malaysian
Federal government owned roads.
This study will benefit academic practitioners, engineers and
decision makers on the subject of improving motorcycle safety
not only in Malaysia but also in other countries that face similar
situations. Model 3 enables us to predict motorcycle fatalities on
Malaysian primary roads by just identifying the ADT of motorcy-
cles and the number of access or minor junction points per kilome-
ter. Hence, engineers or decision makers can plan to reduce
fatalities by closing down some access points and building more
service roads that can combine several access points into one.
The next step for us is to conduct observational studies, i.e., to fo-
cus on the behavior of motorcyclists and other drivers at access
points, in order to analyze and hopefully better understand the
road safety situation on Malaysian primary roads.
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