Reducing the number of accidents in Iraq by using expert system

Abstract EN

Traffic accidents problem is one of the serious problems that leads to economic losses and even to death of road user.

Moreover, in Iraq there is a lack of experts of highway safety, and real experience is limited to few experts.

There is also a lack in the distribution of those experts, in addition to the lack in the skilled staff of highway safety.

Therefore, the development of a computer system that provides expert consultation in the domain of highway safety becomes a real need.

This study has been intended to develop an expert system to suit the real situation of highway safety discussed above.

The system consists of two phases.

The first one is the diagnostic phase that presents some simple questions to the user to identify the problem, and then provide the user with answers about the probable causes.

The second one is the remedy phase that includes the appropriate countermeasures for each probable cause.

Thirteen accident patterns are identified by the developed system such as right angle collisions, rear end collisions, left-turn collisions, right-turn collisions..etc.

The developed system is prepared by the aid of two groups of experts (operators and engineers), and specific references to handle this problem.

The results from accident data demonstrate that Baghdad is the largest number of accidents among other Iraqi cities and Iraq has the highest number of fatalities comparing with the number of accidents among other countries.

This system is believed to be a helpful and practical tool that assists novice, site engineers and operators in making quick and exact decision especially when an experienced engineer is not available.

Evaluating results proved that the usefulness, credibility and efficiency of the system are quite promising.