Weight Feedback-Based Harmonic MDG-Ensemble Model for Prediction of Traffic Accident Severity

Traffic accidents are emerging as a serious social problem in modern society but if the severity of an accident is quickly grasped, countermeasures can be organized efficiently. To solve this problem, the method proposed in this paper derives the MDG (Mean Decrease Gini) coefficient between variables to assess the severity of traffic accidents. Single models are designed to use coefficient, independent variables to determine and predict accident severity. The generated single models are fused using a weighted-voting-based bagging method ensemble to consider various characteristics and avoid overfitting. The variables used for predicting accidents are classified as dependent or independent and the variables that affect the severity of traffic accidents are predicted using the characteristics of causal relationships. Independent variables are classified as categorical and numerical variables. For this reason, a problem arises when the variation among dependent variables is imbalanced. Therefore, a harmonic average is applied to the weights to maintain the variables’ balance and determine the average rate of change. Through this, it is possible to establish objective criteria for determining the severity of traffic accidents, thereby improving reliability.