Monitoring road safety development at regional level: A case study in the ASEAN region.

Persistent monitoring of progress, evaluating the results of interventions and recalibrating to achieve continuous improvement over time is widely recognized as being crucial towards the successful development of road safety. In the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region there is a lack of well-resourced teams that contain multidisciplinary safety professionals, and specialists in individual countries, who are able to carry out this work effectively. In this context, not only must the monitoring framework be effective, it must also be easy to use and adapt. This paper provides a case study that can be easily reproduced; based on an updated and refined Road Safety Development Index (RSDI), by means of the RSR (Rank-sum ratio)-based model, for monitoring/reporting road safety development at regional level. The case study was focused on the road safety achievements in eleven Southeast Asian countries; identifying the areas of poor performance, potential problems and delays. These countries are finally grouped into several classes based on an overview of their progress and achievements regarding to road safety. The results allow the policymakers to better understand their own road safety progress toward their desired impact; more importantly, these results enable necessary interventions to be made in a quick and timely manner. Keeping action plans on schedule if things are not progressing as desired. This would avoid 'reinventing the wheel' and trial and error approaches to road safety, making the implementation of action plans more effective.

Safely active mobility for urban baby boomers: The role of neighborhood design.

Many urban designers and researchers argue that walkable urban environments can encourage older residents' walking activities that benefit their physical health. However, walking also exposes older adults to safety risks, including due to traffic accidents. This study seeks to reveal the interactions between urban form and safety affecting urban baby boomers' walking behavior. Spatial analysis reveals traffic collision patterns in urban Boston neighborhoods, detecting hotspots around activity centers. Structural equation modeling, estimated on individual data collected from a mail-back survey and utilizing numerous measures of neighborhood urban form and accessibility, then attempts to reveal the causal, interacting relationships between neighborhood-level urban form, traffic crashes, and baby boomers' walking behavior. The analysis identifies significant effects of walkable urban forms (e.g., mixed use, well-connected streets, and good access to potential destinations) on older adults' walking. Yet, accessibility to retail, as well as traffic speed and volume, are positively associated with the traffic collision frequency. The results suggest more cautious approaches may be necessary for designing urban spaces for walkability and also call into question prescriptions based on the "safety in numbers" hypothesis.