# Crash Severity Risk Modeling Strategies under Data Imbalance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02094 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02094/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [XGBoost: A Scalable Tree Boosting System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.02754/) (2016)
- [Improved Training of Wasserstein GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.00028/) (2017)
- [Evaluation: from precision, recall and F-measure to ROC, informedness, markedness and correlation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.16061/) (2020)
- [AutoGluon-Tabular: Robust and Accurate AutoML for Structured Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.06505/) (2020)
- [CatBoost: gradient boosting with categorical features support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.11363/) (2018)
- [Imbalanced-learn: A Python Toolbox to Tackle the Curse of Imbalanced Datasets in Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.06570/) (2016)
- [fastai: A Layered API for Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.04688/) (2020)
- [Oversampling for Imbalanced Learning Based on K-Means and SMOTE](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00837/) (2017)
- [An Empirical Study on the Joint Impact of Feature Selection and Data Re-sampling on Imbalance Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00201/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This study investigates crash severity risk modeling strategies for work zones involving large vehicles (i.e., trucks, buses, and vans) under crash data imbalance between low-severity (LS) and high-severity (HS) crashes. We utilized crash data involving large vehicles in South Carolina work zones from 2014 to 2018, which included four times more LS crashes than HS crashes. The objective of this study is to evaluate the crash severity prediction performance of various statistical, machine learning, and deep learning models under different feature selection and data balancing techniques. Findings highlight a disparity in LS and HS predictions, with lower accuracy for HS crashes due to class imbalance and feature overlap. Discriminative Mutual Information (DMI) yields the most effective feature set for predicting HS crashes without requiring data balancing, particularly when paired with gradient boosting models and deep neural networks such as CatBoost, NeuralNetTorch, XGBoost, and LightGBM. Data balancing techniques such as NearMiss-1 maximize HS recall when combined with DMI-selected features and certain models such as LightGBM, making them well-suited for HS crash prediction. Conversely, RandomUnderSampler, HS Class Weighting, and RandomOverSampler achieve more balanced performance, which is defined as an equitable trade-off between LS and HS metrics, especially when applied to NeuralNetTorch, NeuralNetFastAI, CatBoost, LightGBM, and Bayesian Mixed Logit (BML) using merged feature sets or models without feature selection. The insights from this study offer safety analysts guidance on selecting models, feature selection, and data balancing techniques aligned with specific safety goals, providing a robust foundation for enhancing work-zone crash severity prediction.