Repeated traffic violations: modelling and analysis of the decay effect of traffic safety education

Traffic safety education has proved to be an effective means to reduce the number of traffic violations; however, few studies have attempted to quantify how its safety effect sustains over time, that is, the decay mechanism of the safety effect. In this paper, we design an “overlap number of violations before and after traffic safety education” as an evaluation indicator for the impact of traffic safety education. With this, we built a decay model for the effects of traffic safety education using non-linear differential equations, showing it to follow a logistic curve. We identified two critical time points from the decay model: the “optimal safety education frequency point” and the “minimum safety education frequency point,” offering a diversified approach to forming traffic safety education policies. Finally, we applied our model to long-term tracking data from 30 088 traffic violators in Hangzhou, China. Findings suggest that the optimal and minimum safety education frequency points for violations are the 10th and 23rd weeks, respectively. The immediate effect of an education program is higher for reducing motorized vehicle-related violations than for non-motorized vehicle-related violations; however, the long-term impact of education is more profound for non-motorized vehicle-related violations than for motorized vehicles. This research reveals the decay mechanism of traffic safety education effects, which has significant implications for developing effective programs and policies.