# Predicting and Explaining Traffic Crash Severity Through Crash Feature Selection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11504 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.11504/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07874/) (2017)
- [AutoML: A Survey of the State-of-the-Art](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.00709/) (2019)
- [Feature Selection with the R Package MXM: Discovering Statistically-Equivalent Feature Subsets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03227/) (2016)
- [Recent Advances in Traffic Accident Analysis and Prediction: A Comprehensive Review of Machine Learning Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13968/) (2024)
- [Confidence Interval Estimation of Predictive Performance in the Context of AutoML](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08099/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of injury and death worldwide, necessitating data-driven approaches to understand and mitigate crash severity. This study introduces a curated dataset of more than 3 million people involved in accidents in Ohio over six years (2017-2022), aggregated to more than 2.3 million vehicle-level records for predictive analysis. The primary contribution is a transparent and reproducible methodology that combines Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) and explainable artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and interpret key risk factors associated with severe crashes. Using the JADBio AutoML platform, predictive models were constructed to distinguish between severe and non-severe crash outcomes. The models underwent rigorous feature selection across stratified training subsets, and their outputs were interpreted using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to quantify the contribution of individual features. A final Ridge Logistic Regression model achieved an AUC-ROC of 85.6% on the training set and 84.9% on a hold-out test set, with 17 features consistently identified as the most influential predictors. Key features spanned demographic, environmental, vehicle, human, and operational categories, including location type, posted speed, minimum occupant age, and pre-crash action. Notably, certain traditionally emphasized factors, such as alcohol or drug impairment, were less influential in the final model compared to environmental and contextual variables. Emphasizing methodological rigor and interpretability over mere predictive performance, this study offers a scalable framework to support Vision Zero with aligned interventions and advanced data-informed traffic safety policy.