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Application of extended Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence in accident probability estimation for dangerous goods transportation

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Abstract

Transportation of dangerous goods (DGs) is generally associated with significant levels of risk. In the context of DG transportation, risk refers to the likelihood of incurring the undesirable consequences of a possible accident. Since the probability of an accident in a link of a route might depend on a variety of factors, it is necessary to find a way to combine the pieces of evidence/probabilities to estimate the composite probability for the link. Instead of using the Bayesian approach, commonly used in the literature, which requires decision-makers to estimate prior and conditional probabilities and cannot differentiate uncertainty from ignorance, this paper presents a novel approach based on the extended Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence by constructing an adaptive robust combination rule to estimate the accident probability under conflicting evidence. A case study is carried out for the transportation of liquefied petroleum gas in the road network of Hong Kong. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the earmarked grant CUHK449711 of the Hong Kong Research Grant Council and the Vice-Chancellor’s One-Off Discretionary Fund of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Resource Management, Institute of Future Cities, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

    Yee Leung

  2. Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

    Rongrong Li

  3. Department of Mathematics and Information Science, Chang’an University, Xi’an, 710041, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Nannan Ji

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  1. Yee Leung
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  2. Rongrong Li
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  3. Nannan Ji
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Correspondence to Yee Leung.

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Leung, Y., Li, R. & Ji, N. Application of extended Dempster–Shafer theory of evidence in accident probability estimation for dangerous goods transportation. J Geogr Syst 19, 249–271 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-017-0253-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-017-0253-2

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