Incorporating The Home Address of Road Users Involved in Traffic Crashes in Road Safety Analysis

Traditionally, road safety metrics are measured at the location of the crash and its surrounding area. For example, if a crash occurs at an intersection, depending on the scope of the study, the researchers or practitioners may count crashes at intersection level, corridor level, or at a coarser geographic area such as Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ), city level, or county level. Attributing crash to the location of the crash helps us learn about the relationship between road, environment, traffic, and weather and road safety. Based on this practice, several countermeasures have been developed to prevent crashes or reduce the severity of traffic crashes. As a result, a large body of road safety literature was allocated to road and geometry design and their effect on traffic crashes. In my dissertation, I set out to take a more epidemiological approach to road safety analysis, looking at factors such as social geography and travel behavior surrounding the home addresses of the road users involved in traffic crashes –i.e., a Home-Based Approach. Knowing more about the role of a human factor origin, and expressly sociodemographic, and travel behavior could help us to understand road safety from a different perspective that enables researchers and road safety practitioners to target individuals with proper countermeasure and intervention with the intention of reducing crash risk or eliminating aberrant behaviors of road users. My dissertation consists of five chapters. I explored different applications of the Home-Based Approach (HBA) methods in economical cost of traffic crashes, seat belt use analysis, and negative externalities of the tourism industry.