Road safety performance indicators for the interurban road network.

Various road safety performance indicators (SPIs) have been proposed for different road safety research areas, mainly as regards driver behaviour (e.g. seat belt use, alcohol, drugs, etc.) and vehicles (e.g. passive safety); however, no SPIs for the road network and design have been developed. The objective of this research is the development of an SPI for the road network, to be used as a benchmark for cross-region comparisons. The developed SPI essentially makes a comparison of the existing road network to the theoretically required one, defined as one which meets some minimum requirements with respect to road safety. This paper presents a theoretical concept for the determination of this SPI as well as a translation of this theory into a practical method. Also, the method is applied in a number of pilot countries namely the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece and Israel. The results show that the SPI could be efficiently calculated in all countries, despite some differences in the data sources. In general, the calculated overall SPI scores were realistic and ranged from 81 to 94%, with the exception of Greece where the SPI was relatively lower (67%). However, the SPI should be considered as a first attempt to determine the safety level of the road network. The proposed method has some limitations and could be further improved. The paper presents directions for further research to further develop the SPI.

Linking emergency medical department and road traffic police casualty data: a tool in assessing the burden of injuries in less resourced countries.

OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to (1) assess the magnitude of road traffic injuries in a country missing a formal linkage system of police with hospital data, (2) quantify the underreporting, and (3) produce a convenient algorithm exploring its constituent components. METHODS: Linkage of disaggregate (individual) data collected by the road traffic police (RTP) with those by the Emergency Department Injury Surveillance System (EDISS) on the Greek island of Corfu and coded with different classification systems was carried out. The applied four-step methodology, also comprising the calculation of underreporting coefficients of the variation by basic demographic variables, mode of transport, and injury outcome, led to the identification of the overall underreporting from either registry. RESULTS: RTP data captured 96.6% (coefficient: 1.035), whereas EDISS captured only 54.4% of total fatalities (overall concordance: 51.1%). On the contrary, EDISS captured 94.6% of nonfatal injuries, whereas RTP only captured 16% (coefficient: 6.238), resulting in a low overall concordance (10.6%). Considering severity of injury assessed by EDISS, by using the ISS as the gold standard, RTP data misclassified 20.3% of severe injuries as less severe, and a statistically significant difference in the underreporting by gender was also noted. CONCLUSION: Relatively simple methodologies can provide essential coefficients to assess the actual numbers, severity, and components of road casualties by complementing routinely collected RTP with sentinel emergency department reporting systems.