Application of LiDAR Data for Deep Learning Based Near Crash Prediction at Signalized Intersection

Near crash events are often regarded as an excellent surrogate measure for traffic safety research because they include abrupt changes in vehicle kinematics that can lead to deadly accident scenarios. In this paper, we introduced machine learning and deep learning algorithms for predicting near crash events using LiDAR data at a signalized intersection. To predict a near crash occurrence, we used essential vehicle kinematic variables such as lateral and longitudinal velocity, yaw, tracking status of LiDAR, etc. A deep learning hybrid model Convolutional Gated Recurrent Neural Network (CNN + GRU) was introduced, and comparative performances were evaluated with multiple machine learning classification models such as Logistic Regression, K Nearest Neighbor, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Adaptive Boost, and deep learning models like Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). As vehicle kinematics changes occur after sudden brake, we considered average deceleration and kinematic energy drop as thresholds to identify near crashes after vehicle braking time . We looked at the next 3 seconds of this braking time as our prediction horizon. All models work best in the next 1-second prediction horizon to braking time. The results also reveal that our hybrid model gathers the greatest near crash information while working flawlessly. In comparison to existing models for near crash prediction, our hybrid Convolutional Gated Recurrent Neural Network model has 100% recall, 100% precision, and 100% F1-score: accurately capturing all near crashes. This prediction performance outperforms previous baseline models in forecasting near crash events and provides opportunities for improving traffic safety via Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).