High accuracy crash mapping using fuzzy logic

•Mapping crashes to the correct segments are important for road safety analyses.•Assigning crashes to the nearest segments may provide incorrect matching.•Our automatic fuzzy logic and map-matching based method provides about 99% accuracy.•The method developed in this study is generic and transferable.

Accurate crash location data in crash databases can be shown to be essential for crash modelling, crash mapping, hazardous road segment identification and other studies that aim to decrease the number of crashes within a network area. In this paper a generic and high-accuracy automatic crash mapping method is developed and presented. The methodology is based on a transformed map-matching method for candidate road segment identification and on a fuzzy logic inference system for the final road segment selection. The method is implemented by employing all injury and fatal crashes that occurred during 2012 in the UK Strategic Road Network but can be transferred to other network/crash data. The accuracy of the developed method is estimated to be 98.9% (±1.1%) correct matches. The results of this method are compared to other less advanced crash mapping methods.