Modeling animal–vehicle collisions considering animal–vehicle interactions

► A innovative probability model explicitly formulates the interactions between animals and drivers. ► The relationships among drivers’ and animals’ attributes, roadway and environmental factors, and Animal Vehicle Collisions (AVCs) are modeled. ► High speed limits, rural areas, and presence of white-tailed deer habitat have an increasing effect on the probability of AVCs. ► Male animals and roadways with a larger number of lanes or high truck percentage are factors that would decrease the probability of AVCs. Animal–Vehicle Collisions (AVCs) have been a major safety problem in the United States over the past decades. Counter measures against AVCs are urgently needed for traffic safety and wildlife conservation. To better understand the AVCs, a variety of data analysis and statistical modeling techniques have been developed. However, these existing models seldom take human factors and animal attributes into account. This paper presents a new probability model which explicitly formulates the interactions between animals and drivers to better capture the relationship among drivers’ and animals’ attributes, roadway and environmental factors, and AVCs. Findings of this study show that speed limit, rural versus urban, and presence of white-tailed deer habitat have an increasing effect on AVC risk, whereas male animals, high truck percentage, and large number of lanes put a decreasing effect on AVC probability.