Predictive analysis of the impact of the time of day on road accidents in Poland

The steady increase in the number of road users and their growing mobility mean that the issue of road safety is still a topical one. Analyses of factors influencing the number of road traffic accidents contribute to the improvement of road safety. Because changes in traffic volume follow a daily rhythm, hour of the day is an important factor affecting the number of crashes. The present article identifies selected mathematical models which can be used to describe the number of road traffic accidents as a function of the time of their occurrence during the day. The study of the seasonality of the number of accidents in particular hours was assessed. The distributions of the number of accidents in each hour were compared using the Kruskal-Wallis and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests. Multidimensional scaling was used to present the found similarities and differences. Similar hours were grouped into clusters, which were used in further analysis to construct the ARMAX model and the Holt-Winters model. Finally, the predictive capabilities of each model were assessed.