Road Traffic Crashes are the eighth leading cause of death for all age groups and a leading cause of death among the 5-29 years age group (children and adults). Nearly these deaths were causing almost 2-3 % of GDP loss to the nation's economy. Among these crashes, nearly 54% of fatalities were vulnerable road users (VRU), i.e., pedestrians and cyclists (26%), Motorized two-wheelers (28%) [WHO 2018]. These deaths were many but less protected, and the vehicle crashworthiness of these vehicles was a significant reason for these deaths compared to cars, trucks, buses on the road.
Being a low- and middle-income country with more than 1300 million inhabitants, India contributes 11% of total global road traffic deaths [WHO 2018]. A recent report from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway (MoRTH) 2019 show that there were 86,190 VRU deaths, i.e. 57% of total road traffic deaths. Among them, motorized two-wheelers were 56,136 (65% of total VRU deaths), followed by pedestrian (30%) and Bicyclist (5%). Moreover, Tamilnadu is the leading state in the crash and related injuries and deaths.
According to Tobler's first law of geography, "Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things". From this law, studies used in the other nations not applicable to our country due to variance in spatial and temporal structures and difference in road user behaviours, demographics, road infrastructure.
There is a clear knowledge gap in vulnerable road user crashes and not usage of spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal models for VRU Crashes observed in our country. For minimizing this gap, the present research work aims to identify the hot- and cold- spots of vulnerable road user crashes from real-world crash data in Tamilnadu. Later applies spatiotemporal models to this comprehensive data to determine the significant factors causing vulnerable road user crashes. Finally, it suggests effective countermeasures for a specific location to mitigate the vulnerable road crashes in Tamilnadu.