Volume 10, No. 4, 2016
Received: 2016/09/05, Accepted:
Authors:
Sharaf A. Al-Kheder; Ahmad A. Al-Malabeh; Rudaina Al-Momani;
Abstract:
Traffic safety in Jordan is nowadays a major issue of concern due to the excessive increase in the number of traffic accidents and the resulting losses at both human (fatalities and injuries) and economical levels. This paper focuses, using Ajloun city in the northern part of Jordan (a major tourism area) as a case study, on
analyzing and assessing a number of important factors that contribute to the traffic safety problem in Jordan. The focus is mainly placed on assessing the road and environment factors and their role in increasing the traffic accidents’ rates. Spatial analysis through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is utilized to elaborate more about these contributing factors, such as ground topography, land use, road geometry,… etc. The effort presented in this article supports the efforts of establishing a traffic accidents’ digital database in Jordan for monitoring and emergency response purposes to provide safe and high accessible tourism networks. High-accident locations were identified in the study area for detailed analysis. Results show that road and environment factors, such as ground topography, road geometry, climate and pavement condition, are of extreme relevance to the traffic safety problem in our study area and in Jordan as a whole. A number of recommendations were highlighted at the end of the article in order to reduce the frequency and severity of traffic accidents in the area.
Keywords:
Traffic safety, Tourism, Spatial analysis and assessment, GIS, Road and environment factors.