A new spatial and flexible multivariate random-coefficients model for the analysis of pedestrian injury counts by severity level

Abstract

We propose in this paper a spatial random coefficients flexible multivariate count model to examine, at the spatial level of a census tract, the number of pedestrian injuries by injury severity level. Our model, unlike many other macro-level pedestrian injury studies in the literature, explicitly acknowledges that risk factors for different types of pedestrian injuries can be very different, as well as accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in the risk factor effects. We also recognize the multivariate nature of the injury counts by injury severity level within each census tract (as opposed to independently modeling the count of pedestrian injuries by severity level). In concrete methodologic..