A Novel Multiphase Model for Traffic Safety Evaluation: A Case Study of South Africa

Identification of key indicators that cause safety challenges and vulnerable roads is crucial for improving traffic safety. This paper, therefore, entails to the development of a novel multiphase multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) model to evaluate the vulnerability of urban roads for traffic safety. This was conducted by using data from 17 important roads of a South African city and combining several methods such as CRiteria Importance through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC), data envelopment analysis (DEA), and measurement of alternatives and ranking according to compromise solution (MARCOS). Taking the elements of the DEA method, two new approaches for calculating the weights of criteria, the DEA-1 and DEA-2 models, were formed and integrated with the CRITIC method to obtain the final values of criteria weights. The MARCOS method was applied to evaluate 17 alternatives, for each direction separately. The aim of developing such a model is to use the advantages of obtaining objectivity of criteria weights through linear programming and correlation of values of the collected data. Also, the MARCOS method, as one of the newer and applicable methods, provides additional significance. Extensive sensitivity analyses were conducted to validate the model. The findings suggest that there are a certain number of roads that have a high level of safety for both directions, as well as a group of risky roads, which need traffic improvement measures. Thus, the results indicate that the model is sensitive to various approaches and can prioritize vulnerable roads comprehensively based on which safety measures can be taken.