Addressing unobserved heterogeneity in road safety analysis

Despite significant improvements over the last decades, road safety remains a major concern in most countries, including the UK. For example, fatality statistics have flatlined during the last ten years in many high-income countries, calling for research to better understand underlying road crash mechanisms in order to be able to guide traffic safety policy more effectively. A key challenge in this regard is related to data limitations and unobserved heterogeneity. The aim of the project is to apply and extend advanced Bayesian methods in the context of road safety to address unobserved heterogeneity more fully compared to traditional methods used in the crash literature. This would lead to an improved understanding of traffic safety, allowing us to better inform decision makers in applying effective safety interventions.