Assessing the Safety Effects of Excessive Speeding Legislation in Canada by Suliman Ali S. Gargoum A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Transportation Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Alberta © Suliman Ali S. Gargoum, 2015 ABSTRACT Three Canadian provinces, namely, British Columbia (BC), Ontario (ON) and Quebec (QC), introduced legislation to counteract drivers who exceed speed limits by unacceptable margins. The legislation involved the immediate suspension of the driver’s licence, vehicle impoundment, hefty fines and demerit points. The legislation has been in effect for a few years now, and the fatality counts seem to have dropped since the inception of the law. However, no statistical evidence has been provided to support such claims. Thus, the primary goal of this thesis is to perform an ARIMA time-series intervention analysis of collision data from the three provinces to help understand the safety benefits of this excessive speed legislation in Canada. Moreover, the thesis provides a framework for statistical assessment of legislative changes in general and develops statistical models, which can be used for accident prediction in the three provinces. Time series are frequently affected by policy changes, such as the aforementioned legislation; these policy changes are usually referred to as interventions. Interventions can affect the response in several different ways. These effects include changing the level of the series either abruptly or long-term, changing the trend of the series, or having other, more complicated, effects on the series. In this thesis, an intervention analysis of the collision data, at different severity levels, from the three provinces was conducted. The analysis aims to identify any changes in the time series behaviour of the collision data after the implementation of the intervention (legislation). Potential changes were assessed for statistical significance, and the magnitude of the change was quantified in each case. The analysis was also performed on collision data while accounting for exposure, and similar findings were reached. In the process, twelve different models were developed for all provinces, and another set of models was also developed while accounting for exposure effects. ii Overall, it was found that a statistically significant drop in fatal collisions occurred in two of the three provinces (BC and ON) after implementing the new policy. In QC, a statistically significant drop was observed in injury, property-damage-only (PDO) and total collision counts; however, these drops could not be fully credited to the new policy alone, as a new distracted driving law was also implemented at the same time. With respect to injury, PDO and total collisions in BC and ON, changes in the series associated with the policy varied and so did their statistical significance. In general, the findings imply that the excessive speeding legislation was effective in reducing province-wide fatal collisions, indicating a general deterrence effect. The effects of the policy on other types of collisions (injury, PDO and total) are inconclusive. Further analysis, when more post-intervention data is available, could reveal more information regarding the effects of the policy on those types of crashes. Moreover, when combined with other laws and policies, the excessive speeding law could potentially be effective in reducing injury, PDO and total collision counts; this finding, however, would require further testing and investigation. iii PREFACE Work presented in this thesis has been submitted for publication in the Accident Analysis and Prevention journal. Gargoum and El-Basyouny (2015) “Assessing the Safety Effects of Excessive Speeding Legislation in Canada”. Accident Analysis and Prevention. Under Review. iv Dedicated to my parents v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Above all, praise is due to almighty Allah for guiding me and giving me the power and strength to complete this work. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Karim El Basyouny for providing me the opportunity to pursue this degree; his support, belief and confidence in my ability helped me develop in many areas. I am also grateful for the financial support he has provided me throughout my studies. My sincere thanks are also extended to my defense committee members Dr. Amy Kim (Chair) and Dr. Marwan El-Rich for their advice and assistance. I am really thankful to my professors at the University of Alberta for the valuable knowledge they provided me through my coursework. I would also like to thank Aalyssa Atley for her editorial support over the past year; her efforts have been an integral part of all my work. I am extremely grateful to my professors at the UAE University for the knowledge, the help and the advice they have offered me during and after completing my undergraduate degree. Special thanks is due to my former supervisor Dr. Aman Mwafy who has been a remarkable mentor over the years. I would also like to express my appreciation to my friends and colleagues for their help, encouragement and moral support. Lastly and most importantly, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my parents, my two sisters and my brother for their love, care and unconditional support throughout the years. I will be forever indebted to my mother for her love, continuous encouragement and inspiration; she was the one who taught me to always strive for the best and never be satisfied with anything else. I am also immensely grateful to my father for the endless motivation, sheer guidance and the technical support. I owe it all to my family. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii PREFACE ...................................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. vii LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... x LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... xi 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Objective and Motivation ................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Thesis Structure ................................................................................................................ 4 2. Literature Review.................................................................................................................... 6 2.1 The Effects of Speed on Safety ........................................................................................ 6 2.1.1 Speed and Collision Severity .................................................................................... 7 2.1.2 Speed and Collision Occurrence ............................................................................... 8 2.2 Speed Management Strategies ....................................................................................... 16 2.3 The Effects of Severe Sanctions on Safety .................................................................... 19 2.3.1 Previous Use of Severe Sanctions........................................................................... 20 2.3.2 Severe Sanctions Against Excessive Speeders ....................................................... 22 2.3.3 Issues Associated with Vehicle-Related Sanctions ................................................. 26 2.4 Statistical Techniques Used to Assess Legislative Changes .......................................... 28 3. New Legislation .................................................................................................................... 31 3.1 British Columbia ............................................................................................................ 31 3.1.1 Law: ........................................................................................................................ 31 3.1.2 Sanctions: ................................................................................................................ 31 3.2 Ontario ............................................................................................................................ 32 3.2.1 Law: ........................................................................................................................ 32 3.2.2 Sanctions: ................................................................................................................ 32 3.3 Quebec ............................................................................................................................ 32 3.3.1 Law: ........................................................................................................................ 32 3.3.2 Sanctions: ................................................................................................................ 33 3.4 Publicity and Enforcement ............................................................................................. 34 vii 3.5 Hypotheses ..................................................................................................................... 35 4. Dataset Description ............................................................................................................... 36 4.1 Collision Data ................................................................................................................. 36 4.2 Exposure Measure .......................................................................................................... 39 4.3 Other Legislation ............................................................................................................ 39 5. Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 41 5.1 ARIMA........................................................................................................................... 42 5.1.1 General Notation ..................................................................................................... 42 5.1.2 Box-Jenkins Procedure ........................................................................................... 43 5.2 Intervention Analysis ..................................................................................................... 43 5.3 Outlier Assessment ......................................................................................................... 45 6. Modelling .............................................................................................................................. 47 6.1 ARIMA Modelling: ........................................................................................................ 47 6.2 Preliminary Investigation ............................................................................................... 50 6.3 Intervention Modelling ................................................................................................... 51 6.3.1 Procedure ................................................................................................................ 51 6.3.2 Models..................................................................................................................... 52 6.3.3 Goodness of Fit ....................................................................................................... 55 7. Results & Discussion ............................................................................................................ 57 7.1 Results ............................................................................................................................ 57 7.1.1 Ontario .................................................................................................................... 57 7.1.2 British Columbia ..................................................................................................... 58 7.1.3 Quebec .................................................................................................................... 59 7.2 Discussion: ..................................................................................................................... 60 7.3 ARIMA Intervention Modelling vs Analysis Using ARIMA Forecasts ........................ 62 8. Conclusions and Future Research ......................................................................................... 64 8.1 Concluding Remarks ...................................................................................................... 64 8.2 Research Contribution .................................................................................................... 65 8.3 Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 66 8.4 Future Research .............................................................................................................. 67 References: .................................................................................................................................... 69 Appendices Contents: ................................................................................................................... 75 viii APPENDIX A (Supplementary Tables): ...................................................................................... 76 APPENDIX B (Supplementary Figures): ..................................................................................... 79 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Power Estimates by Road Type and Collision Severity (Elvik, 2009) ............................. 8 Table 2: Previous Studies.............................................................................................................. 26 Table 3: Excessive Speeding Sanctions in Quebec ....................................................................... 34 Table 4: Descriptive Statistics of the Data .................................................................................... 37 Table 5: Other Legislative Changes during the Study Period ....................................................... 40 Table 6: Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test Results .......................................................................... 48 Table 7: ARIMA Models Selected for Pre-Intervention Data ...................................................... 50 Table 8: Mean Comparison Using t-Test ...................................................................................... 51 Table 9: ARIMAX Models Selected ............................................................................................. 53 Table 10: Parameter Estimates for Developed Models ................................................................. 54 Table 11: Intervention Parameter Estimates and Significance ..................................................... 57 Table 12: British Columbia ARIMAX Model Estimates ............................................................. 76 Table 13: Ontario ARIMAX Model Estimates ............................................................................. 77 Table 14: Quebec ARIMAX Model Estimates ............................................................................. 78 x