International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET) Volume 9, Issue 4, April 2018, pp. 933–938, Article ID: IJCIET_09_04_104 Available online at http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJCIET?Volume=9&Issue=4 ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316

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IDENTIFYING BLACK SPOT LOCATIONS AT CITY BY USING GIS SYSTEM

Asst. Prof. Dr. Hamid Athab Al-Jameel Civil Engineering Department, University of ,

Dr. Ahmed Yahya AbdAbas Department of Geographic, University of Kufa, Iraq

ABSTRACT From the challenges facing the world are the loss of life and financial due to traffic accidents. This is the case for Iraq because it is from the most dangerous countries in terms of traffic accidents. To reduce traffic accidents, the causes of these accidents such as driver, vehicle and roadway should be determined. To diagnose the cause of accidents, there is an urgent need to determine the black spot along each road which is a location with high frequency of accidents. By knowing that, the actual causes may be pinpointed such as unsatisfied design or absence of suitable traffic signs. This will lead to effective solutions. The current system has been developed using Geographic Information System (GIS) to build new referencing points as bench marks spreading on the whole Karbala road networks which will be used in the accident form. This system has been developed as nodes and links to define the roads networks. The developed system records all necessary information about the sites and also the required information about the accident such as the type of accident (head- on, rear-on, sideswipe, vehicle with pedestrian collisions), the main causes of accident (driver, pedestrian, roadway) and environmental conditions. All these information are storage in the attribute for each feature in the GIS. The system may be adopted by traffic authorities to document the accidents and the referencing points should be established in the field. Some of roadways have already referencing points which could be recorded in the accident form. Keywords: Accidents, GIS, Black spot, hot spot. Cite this Article: Dr. Hamid Athab Al-Jameel and Dr. Ahmed Yahya AbdAbas, Identifying Black Spot Locations at Karbala City by Using GIS System, International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 9(4), 2018, pp. 933–938. http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJCIET?Volume=9&Issue=4

1. INTRODUCTION The sites with high accidents frequency are called black spots, hot spots, or high-risk locations. The black spot has received a lot of attentions through the literatures (Al-Jameel, 2002 and Haque et al., 2013). Generally, in Iraq, there are a lot of accidents due to a huge

http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCIET 933 [email protected] Identifying Black Spot Locations at Karbala City by Using GIS System increment in the number of vehicles especially after 2003. Moreover, the absence of suitable infrastructure for safety such as referencing points and accurate information about accidents is the main cause of continuity in increasing accidents (Albayati and Latief, 2018 and Al- Jameel, 2016). According to the highest number of accidents occurring in Iraq, It is considered from the dangerous countries in traffic accidents even a lot of these accident don't record (Topten, 2016 and Al-Jameel, 2016). Leidman et al., (2016) reported that the number of accidents in some was 7976 between 2010 and 2013. The highest numbers of people involved in these accidents were males (ages between 15-34). Moreover, the percentage of fatalities from these accidents was 78%. In Karbala city, the number of fatal accident form 2010 to 2013 was 657 and the percentage of pedestrian involved in these accidents was 53.9%. This indicates how this city is suffering from traffic accidents (Leidman et al., 2016). Accident data collected from statistical units in traffic Directorate suffer from accurate location of the accident (Al-Jameel, 2002 and 2016). This could be attributed to absence of referencing point with road networks related to the traffic accidents. Furthermore, minor accidents may not record if the drivers involved in that accident have reconciled. This makes the traffic accident problems more complex and current accident recording system is less effective to give accurate picture of accident causes and solutions. Geographic information system (GIS) could be defined as a computer system works on collecting, maintenance, storage, analyze, output and distribute data in addition to geographical information for determining the aims. This will help on planning, making decision relating to urban planning by building what called layers. The GIS contributes in recording geographical information (maps, satellite images, ), descriptors ( names and tables), their processing (revision from error), storage, interpreting, analyzing the information spatial and statistical analysis, and presenting the information on PC monitor or maps, reports and graphically (GIS, 2016 and K. N. Kadhim and Ghufran 2016 ). For example, Kishoran et al., (2017) used GIS to map traffic accidents and identify hotspot within Batticaloa city. Similarly, Yohannes and Minale (2015) used GIS to identify the location of hotspots location. Demir et al., (2016) and K. N. Kadhim 2018 also conducted their study to find the accurate location for hotspot using GIS tool according to data obtained from traffic accident reports Therefore, the current study aims to build database for recording accident using GIS in order to identify the black spots in Karbala city.

2. METHODOLOGY The GIS is considered from one of means of information revolution which contributing in supporting contemporary spatial studies by providing analyzing technique for spatial data after connecting these data with description data and give different results strengthening from supporting applicable contemporary idea. The GIS consists of group of engaged and connected elements to give determined system doing specific goal. These elements can be divided into five fundamental elements: hardware, software, users, data and procedures. Figure 1 demonstrates the methodology used in this study.

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Figure 1 Flow diagram representing steps for building GIS This technique depends on several logical steps each one based mainly on the one previous. Thus, the selection of suitable process system is a critical and accurate process therefore, the unclear in making decision may cost more later on. The selection process of the suitable system depends on several issues relating to the problem under study, the financial cost and efficiency in solving similar problems and how to find suitable alternatives methods which changing according to the user's desire. In addition, the type of final outputs is also important factor in selecting the destined system. In light of the above, the merits of using GIS are important in mitigating the accident problems in Karbala city by building information spatial system. This system is more than necessary in order to specify the location of accidents and the causes of these accidents. This could be mainly reduced from the accident occurrences. To achieve this aim, there is no way but building a knowledge base using GIS to store a lot of necessary information in accurate method. The integrated and accurate information will reflect on the analysis and output stages. The process of constructing knowledge base consists of several steps such as determine the dimensions of information base. This information base includes determining the boundaries of study area, the coordinate and projection systems which are used and how this is suitable for the site and the nature and type of studied problem. In addition, the process of developing such system determining the type of layers will be built and what information each layer includes and in this stage determining the symbology which connects among all phenomena, description information and statistical data. The current study depends mainly on then given remote sensing such as American Satellite (Quick bird) in accurate of 60cm taken for the Holy Karbala City, its suburban and surrounding area in 2014 and which already has been corrected from its source. This has been used for visual interpreting for this map depending on criteria and elements interpretation such as size, color, shape, fabric, etc, in addition to using this map as a background. It has been created shape files in three types: point to represent check points, line to draw the roads and polygon to represent the geographical area occupied by study area. Then, these features have been connected by attributes table showing its characteristics. This step has

http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJCIET 935 [email protected] Identifying Black Spot Locations at Karbala City by Using GIS System been conducted by ARC GIS 9.3. After that all the processes have been carried out such encoding, coloring, classifying phenomena, analyzing data and output process for maps. The period of this study was one year.

3. CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION The boundary of the area of city under study, as indicated in Figure 2, is about 5322 Hectares as reported in the Fundamental design for 2005 within the boundary of Karbala manipulate and the number of populations is about 454726 persons who distribute among three sectors in 57 quarters. The study includes making survey on the number of accidents in the city. It was found that the accident form report is very simple form and it is free from more important information such as the exact location of the accident occurrence especially on road segment which has been mentioned by Al-Jameel (2002 and 2016). The problem of determining accurate location may be less at intersections.

Figure 2 The location of holy Karbala city from Iraq In this study, the referencing points have been distributed to cover the whole city of Karbala. These points have been selected mainly in each intersection to define both node and link at which accident may occur. Therefore using such referencing points will determine the section of accident occurrence by referring to these points in the accident form. These referencing points start from one at city center then spreading towards other quarters in the city as shown in selected figures from the developed GIS (see Figures 3 and 4). Figure 3 demonstrates the referencing points within the city center. Whereas, Figure 4 indicates the referencing points close to the holy shrine of Al-Imam Al-Hussein. These points could easily be put on their actual places by using label connected with electrical columns which already have been found serving other purposes as shown in Figure 5. This figure shows that labels used to facilitate the guidance of the visitors coming to the holy shrines in the city center.

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Figure 3 Referencing points within the city center of Karbala city.

Figure 4 Referencing points within the holy Karbala city

Figure 5 A label connected with electrical column.

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4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The main insights comes from this study is that a need for starting with practical steps to prevent occurrence of accidents by doing statistical studies. Therefore, in turn, this study has developed GIS model providing with referencing points covering all potential conflict points such as intersections. The developed GIS has been calibrated with different resources to make sure about its accuracy in terms of representing the exact location for these referencing points. The next step is to encourage traffic offices in the city to put labels of these referencing on their locations in the system and also to include these points in the accident form used by traffic policemen when recording accidents. This will help more to find the black spot.

REFERENCES [1] Albayati, A.; and Latief, R. (2018). Statistical Analysis of Mortality and Morbidity Due to Traffic Accident in Iraq. Journal of Babylon, Vol. 24 (1), pp.20-40. [2] Al-Jameel, H. (2002). Development of an Expert System to Control Highway Safety Problems. MSc Thesis, University of Technology, Iraq. [3] Al-Jameel, H. (2016). Reducing the Number of Accidents in Iraq by Using Expert System. Journal of Babylon University, Vol. 24 (2), Iraq. [4] Demir, M., Caner, A.; and Bulut, Y. (2016). Analysis Of Traffic Accidents Based On GIS For Use In Transportation Planning in the city of Erzurum (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298211129_Analysis_Of_Traffic_Accidents_B ased_On_GIS_For_Use_In_Transportation_Planning_in_the_city_of_Erzurum) [5] GIS (2016). http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w0615e/w0615e06.htm. Last accessed on 1/2/2016. [6] Haque, M., Oh, J.; and Lee, D. (2013). Identifying Black Spots Using Property Damage Only Equivalency (PDOE) Factors. 16th Road Safety on Four Continents Conference, Beijing, China. [7] Kadhim Naief Kadhim and Ghufran A.( The Geotechnical Maps For Gypsum By Using Gis For City (Najaf - Iraq). (IJCIET), Volume 7, Issue 4, July-August 2016, pp. 329–338 [8] Kadhim Naief Kadhim (Geospatial Technology for ground Water quality parameters assessment in Dhi-Qar governorate-Iraq by using (GIS)). International Journal of Civil Engineering & Technology (IJCIET), Volume 9, Issue 1, (Jan 2018) [9] Kishoran, S., Gunathilaka, J., Sivanantharajah, S.; and Vinobaba, P. (2017). GIS Based Road Traffic Accident Analysis in Batticaloa City. Proceedings of Postgraduate Institute of Science Research Congress, Sri Lanka, September, 8-9. [10] Leidman, E., Maliniak, M., Sultan, A., Hassan, A., Hussain, S., and Bilukha, O. (2016). Road traffic fatalities in selected governorates of Iraq from 2010 to 2013: prospective surveillance. Conflict and Health. [11] Topten (2016). (http://www.toptenscentral.com/2015/08/top-10-countries-with-highest- number-of-deadly-road-accidents/. Last accessed on 1/3/2016. [12] Yohannes, A.; and Minale, A. (2015). Identifying the Hot Spot Areas of Road Traffic Accidents. Jordan Journal of Civil Engineering 9(3), pp.358-370.

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