An analysis of COVID-19 effects on the trends of traffic violations

Traffic violations can pose significant challenges to public safety and road infrastructure. The consequences of such violations may be managed based on the insights from their observed trends. Following the COVID-19 outbreak and changes in driving behavior, the violation patterns were affected. This study examines traffic violations in the Isfahan province of Iran between 2016 and 2022, focusing on seat belt and speeding violations. Two analytical approaches, time series analysis and count data modeling, were employed to explore various aspects of these violations. Time series analysis involved analyzing aggregated monthly violation records to forecast trends before and during the pandemic. A comparison of projected and observed patterns revealed remarkable shifts in traffic violations, especially after the start of the vaccination campaign in February 2021. This study also found that recording speeding violations was influenced by the maintenance of the speed-control cameras. The second approach focused on police-issued violation records across three periods: two pre-pandemic phases (Pre1 and Pre2) and a pandemic phase (Pand). A set of zero-truncated Poisson models assessed individual and environmental factors in Pre1 and Pre2, such as car type, license plate, driver characteristics, time of day, day type, road hierarchy, and season. The results showed that these factors significantly impacted violation probabilities. To analyze the effects of COVID-19 on these influential factors, another zero-truncated Poisson model was applied to the Pand phase, along with t-tests comparing the coefficients across the three phases. The findings revealed statistically significant changes in how these factors influenced seat belt and speeding violations. Notably, driver characteristics, day type, and season became more determinant for seat belt violations in the Pand phase, while the importance of license plate type decreased.