arXiv:2602.13339cs.CVcs.AI2026-02

用街景图像分析道路视觉环境对交通事故的因果影响,发现绿化率越高事故越少。

An Integrated Causal Inference Framework for Traffic Safety Modeling with Semantic Street-View Visual Features

  • 通过街景图像语义分割提取视觉特征,结合双重机器学习量化其对事故的因果效应。
  • 绿化比例每增加1%,区域事故率平均下降6.38起(p=0.005),在人口密集区效果更显著。
  • 研究为城市绿化安全干预提供因果证据,特别提示需针对弱势道路使用者优化设计。

宏观交通安全管理旨在识别区域交通事故的关键风险因素,从而指导针对性政策干预。然而,现有方法主要依赖静态社会经济与基础设施指标,常忽视驾驶员对行车环境的视觉感知影响。尽管视觉环境特征已被证实影响驾驶行为与交通事故,但现有证据多为观察性,难以建立复杂空间环境下交通政策评估所需的稳健因果关系。为此,我们对谷歌街景图像进行语义分割,提取视觉环境特征,并提出双重机器学习框架,量化其对区域事故的因果影响。同时,利用SHAP值刻画混杂变量的非线性作用机制,采用因果森林估计条件平均处理效应。基于佛罗里达迈阿密都会区的事故记录与22万张街景图像,结果显示绿化比例对交通事故具有显著且稳健的负向因果效应(平均处理效应 = -6.38,p = 0.005)。该保护效应呈现空间异质性,在人口密集和社会脆弱性高的城市核心区尤为明显。绿化显著降低侧面碰撞与追尾事故,但对弱势道路使用者(VRUs)的保护作用有限。研究结果为绿化作为安全干预措施提供了因果证据,强调应优先改善高风险视觉环境,同时需针对弱势道路使用者进行差异化设计优化。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Macroscopic traffic safety modeling aims to identify critical risk factors for regional crashes, thereby informing targeted policy interventions for safety improvement. However, current approaches rely heavily on static sociodemographic and infrastructure metrics, frequently overlooking the impacts from drivers' visual perception of driving environment. Although visual environment features have been found to impact driving and traffic crashes, existing evidence remains largely observational, failing to establish the robust causality for traffic policy evaluation under complex spatial environment. To fill these gaps, we applied semantic segmentation on Google Street View imageries to extract visual environmental features and proposed a Double Machine Learning framework to quantify their causal effects on regional crashes. Meanwhile, we utilized SHAP values to characterize the nonlinear influence mechanisms of confounding variables in the models and applied causal forests to estimate conditional average treatment effects. Leveraging crash records from the Miami metropolitan area, Florida, and 220,000 street view images, evidence shows that greenery proportion exerts a significant and robust negative causal effect on traffic crashes (Average Treatment Effect = -6.38, p = 0.005). This protective effect exhibits spatial heterogeneity, being most pronounced in densely populated and socially vulnerable urban cores. While greenery significantly mitigates angle and rear-end crashes, its protective benefit for vulnerable road users (VRUs) remains limited. Our findings provide causal evidence for greening as a potential safety intervention, prioritizing hazardous visual environments while highlighting the need for distinct design optimizations to protect VRUs.

交通安全因果推断视觉感知城市规划

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