Given the hazards posed by black ice, it is crucial to investigate the conditions that contribute to its formation. Two ensemble machinelearning algorithms, Random Forest (RF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), were employed to forecast the occurrence of black ice using atmospheric data. Additionally, explainable artificial intelligence techniques, including Feature Importance (FI) and partial dependence Plot (PDP), were utilized to identify atmospheric conditions that significantly increase the likelihood of black ice formation. The machinelearning algorithms achieved a forecasting accuracy of 90%, demonstrating reliable performance. FI analysis revealed distinct key predictors between the algorithms: relative humidity was the most critical for RF, whereas wind speed was paramount for XGBoost. The PDP analysis identified the specific atmospheric conditions under which black ice was likely to form. This study provides detailed insights into the atmospheric precursors of frost/fog-induced black ice formation. These findings enable road managers to implement proactive winter road maintenance strategies, such as optimizing anti-icing patrol routes and displaying warnings on various message signs, thereby enhancing road safety.

This study intends to present a traffic node-based and link-based accident prediction models using XGBoost which is very excellent in performance among machine learning models, and to develop those models with sustainability and scalability. Also, we intend to present those models which predict the number of annual traffic accidents based on road types, weather conditions, and traffic information using XGBoost. To this end, data sets were constructed by collecting and preprocessing traffic accident information, road information, weather information, and traffic information. The SHAP method was used to identify the variables affecting the number of traffic accidents. The five main variables of the traffic node-based accident prediction model were snow cover, precipitation, the number of entering lanes and connected links, and slow speed. Otherwise, those of the traffic link-based accident prediction model were snow cover, precipitation, the number of lanes, road length, and slow speed. As the evaluation results of those models, the RMSE values of those models were each 0.2035 and 0.2107. In this study, only data from Sejong City were used to our models, but ours can be applied to all regions where traffic nodes and links are constructed. Therefore, our prediction models can be extended to a wider range.