An artificial neural network-based expert system for the appraisal of two-car crash accidents

This paper employs artificial neural network (ANN) to develop an accident appraisal expert system. Two ANN models – party-based and case-based – with different hidden neurons are trained and validated by k-fold (k = 3) cross validation method. A total of 537 two-car crash accidents (1074 parties involved) are randomly and equally divided into three subsets. For the comparison, a discrimination analysis (DA) model is also calibrated. The results show that the ANN model can achieve a high correctness rate of 85.72% in training and 77.91% in validation and a low Schwarz's Bayesian information criterion (SBC) of −0.82 in training and 0.13 in validation, which indicates that the ANN model is suitable for accident appraisal. Furthermore, in order to measure the importance of each explanatory variable, a general influence (GI) index is computed based on the trained weights of ANN. It is found that the most influential variable is right-of-way, followed by location and alcoholic use. This finding concurs with the prior knowledge in accident appraisal. Thus, for the fair assessment of accident liabilities the correctness of these three key variables is of critical importance to police investigation reports.