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Understanding and prioritising crash contributing factors is important for improving traffic safety on the expressway. This paper aims to identify the possible contributory factors that were based on findings obtained from crash data at Senai-Desaru Expressway (SDE), which is the main connector between the western and eastern parts of Johor, Malaysia. Using reported accident data, the mishaps that had occurred along the 77.2 km road were used to identify crash patterns and their possible related segment conditions. The Average Crash Frequency and Equivalent Property Damage Only Average Crash Frequency Methods had been used to identify and rank accident-prone road segments as well as to propose for appropriate simple and inexpensive countermeasures. The results show that the dominant crash type along the road stretches of SDE had consisted of run-off-road collision and property damage only crashes. All types of accidents were more likely to occur during daytime. Out of the 154 segments, the 4 most accident-prone road segments had been determined and analysed. The results obtained from the analyses suggest that accident types are necessary for identifying the possible causes of accidents and the appropriate strategies for countermeasures. Therefore, this accident analysis could be helpful to relevant authorities in reducing the number of road accidents and the level of accident severity along the SDE.

This paper focuses on the aspect of road safety based on the impact of pavement conditions on accident severities. Four models of binomial and multinomial logistic regression were produced using the R software and utilizing two years of accident and pavement conditions data on Malaysian highways. The surface characteristics analyzed included the International Roughness Index (IRI), rut depth (RD) and mean texture depth (MTD). The accident severity assessed ranged from damage to death. Results indicated that IRI has the highest tendency to affect accident severity for all models. At the thresholds identified for all independent variables, the chances of death had increased significantly. As such, efforts must be driven to ensure the thresholds are not reached in the maintenance of pavements for better road safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]