Using explainable AI for enhanced understanding of winter road safety: insights with support vector machines and SHAP

This study investigates the utility of machine learning (ML) in understanding and mitigating winter road risks. Despite their capability in managing complex data structures, ML models often lack interpretability. We address this issue by integrating Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) with a support vector machine (SVM) model. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset of 231 snowstorm events collected in the city of Edmonton across two winter seasons, the SVM model achieved an accuracy rate of 87.2%. Following model development, a SHAP summary plot was employed to identify the contribution of individual features to collision predictions—an insight not achievable through ML alone. Next, SHAP waterfall plots were used to assess the reliability of individual predictions. The findings enhanced our understanding of the complex SVM model and provided greater insights into the diverse factors affecting winter road safety.