Spatial-Temporal CNNs: A Deep Learning Approach to Predictive Traffic Accident Hotspotting

Authors

  • Dodo, Simon Numduck Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State. Author https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3267-6352
  • Dr. Muhammad, Kudu Muhammad Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State. Author https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8568-0743
  • Dr. Sulaimon, Adebayo Bashir Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State. Author
  • Dr. Enesi, Femi Aminu Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State. Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.70882/noun-ijcea.2026.1114

Keywords:

Accident, CNN, Deep Learning, DistillBERT, Road Traffic, Special pattern, Transformer

Abstract

Road traffic accidents remain a serious global challenge, claiming millions of lives annually and straining economies worldwide. This study introduces a novel hybrid architecture that integrates Convolutional Neural Networks with DistillBERT transformer-based architecture to tackle the persistent problem of accident severity prediction. However, by merging different real-world data streams weather patterns, traffic congestion levels, road infrastructure details, and historical crash records from Los Angeles County. The model learns to read the complex language of urban risk. The approach transforms raw, noisy, and imbalanced data into meaningful structure sequence, enabling the CNN to map spatial pattern while DistillBERT's lightweight attention mechanism traces how these risks evolve over time. The experimental training and evaluation show that CNN-DistillBERT’s models achieve the highest results of 94.66% accuracy in predicting accident severity. This study opens practical approach for real time road traffic analysis before and after it happened.

Author Biographies

  • Dodo, Simon Numduck, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.

    Department - Computer Science 

    Rank - M.Tech Student

  • Dr. Muhammad, Kudu Muhammad, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.

    Department - Computer Science 

    Rank - Senior Lecturer

  • Dr. Sulaimon, Adebayo Bashir, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.

    Department - Computer Science

    Rank - Senior Lecturer

  • Dr. Enesi, Femi Aminu, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.

    Department - Computer Science 

    Rank - Senior Lecturer

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Published

2026-04-30

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