Becky P.Y. Loo

Factors affecting the likelihood of reporting road crashes resulting in medical treatment to the police

Objective: This paper aims to determine the percentage of road crashes resulting in injuries requiring hospital care that are reported to the police and to identify factors associated with reporting such crashes to the police. Design: The data of one of two hospitals in the Road Casualty Information System were matched with the police’s Traffic Accident Database System. Factors affecting the police-reporting rate were examined at two levels: the different reporting rates among subgroups examined and tested with χ2 tests; and multiple explanatory factors were scrutinised with a logistic regression model to arrive at the odds ratios to reflect the probability of police-reporting among subgroups. Results: The police-reporting rate was estimated to be 57.5–59.9%. In particular, under-reporting among children (reporting rate = 33.6%) and cyclists (reporting rate = 33.0%) was notable. Discussion: Accurate and reliable road crash data are essential for unveiling the full-scale and nature of the road safety problem. The police crash database needs to be supplemented by other data. In particular, any estimation about the social costs of road crashes must recognise the under-reporting problem. The large number of injuries not reflected in the police crash database represents a major public health issue that should be carefully examined.

An international review of the frequency of single-bicycle crashes (SBCs) and their relation to bicycle modal share

Objectives To study cyclists’ share of transport modes (modal share) and single-bicycle crashes (SBCs) in different countries in order to investigate if the proportion of cyclist injuries resulting from SBCs is affected by variation in modal share. Methods A literature search identified figures (largely from western countries) on SBC casualties who are fatally injured, hospitalised or treated at an emergency department. Correlation and regression analyses were used to investigate how bicycle modal share is related to SBCs. Results On average, 17% of fatal injuries to cyclists are caused by SBCs. Different countries show a range of values between 5% and 30%. Between 60% and 95% of cyclists admitted to hospitals or treated at emergency departments are victims of SBCs. The proportion of all injured cyclists who are injured in SBCs is unrelated to the share of cycling in the modal split. The share of SBC casualties among the total number of road crash casualties increases proportionally less than the increase in bicycle modal share. Conclusions While most fatal injuries among cyclists are due to motor vehicle–bicycle crashes, most hospital admissions and emergency department attendances result from SBCs. As found in previous studies of cyclists injured in collisions, this study found that the increase in the number of SBC casualties is proportionally less than the increase in bicycle modal share.

A qualitative assessment methodology for road safety policy strategies

This paper proposes a qualitative assessment methodology that is comprised of a cluster analysis and an autoregression analysis that assess the effects of various road safety strategies implemented in Hong Kong over the last 10 years. The cluster analysis is first used to group over a hundred road safety projects and programs into a smaller set of meaningful road safety policy strategy clusters. These strategies, together with the trend factor, seasonal pattern, car crashworthiness and meteorological data are then used in the autoregression analysis to relate to the fatality and casualty rates of drivers, passengers, motorcyclists, and pedestrians. This method allows the evaluation of the overall effects of the road safety strategies, and the effects and relative significance of each individual strategy. The evaluation method is described, and the main findings of the study are discussed.

Tunnel traffic and toll elasticities in Hong Kong: some recent evidence for international comparisons

In this paper, a set of double-log multiple regression models is developed to examine the monthly tunnel traffic of six major toll tunnels in Hong Kong for a 22-year period from January 1979 to September 2000. Despite the much lower percentage of households with cars (12.3%) and the higher dependence of passenger trips on public transport (80.2%), the estimated automobile elasticities in Hong Kong are remarkably similar to those reported in New York, where car ownership is high and the automobile is the dominant mode of transport. The empirical elasticity range in Hong Kong is from —0.103 to —0.291. This is similar to estimates for the United States (—0.13 to —0.45), the United Kingdom (—0.14 to —0.36), and Australia (—0.09 to —0.52). The findings suggest that toll increases are likely to be effective in raising revenue for tunnel management authorities but ineffective in reducing or reallocating automobile traffic for transport planning purposes. Policywise, suburbanization or the redistribution of population could have a much stronger influence on the urban transport market than a ‘multifaceted pricing’ strategy of raising the total costs of vehicle ownership and usage (including high vehicle-registration fees, parking, and gasoline prices). Moreover, improvements to railway connectivity and enhancement of travel speed on public transit could be much more effective than toll increases in relieving urban transport congestion problems at critical bottlenecks, such as downtown and suburb–downtown tunnels and bridges. The inclusion of lagged effects into the analysis further strengthens the above policy recommendations.

Interplay of international, national and local factors in shaping container port development: A case study of Hong Kong

The paper attempts to develop a better understanding of the evolution and future prospects of a container port by drawing on the changing international, national and local factors since the 1990s. Hong Kong, the worlds busiest container port, is chosen as a case study. Against the background of four international megatrends of increasingly large containerships (and the restructuring of the liner shipping industry), the high spatial agglomeration of container traffic, the emergence of inland load centres and the growing importance of railways, the levels and the spatial dimensions of containerization in the Peoples Republic of China are systematically examined. Then, the relevancy of these factors in shaping the evolution and competitive position of Hong Kongs container port is highlighted at the local level. This paper finds that the changing policies of the Hong Kong government have not been consistent with the international and national trends associated with the development of a better integrated port - inland distribution system (and land bridges) based on road and railways. Market forces cannot explain the container port development satisfactorily. Political and other considerations have become equally, if not more, important. In the future, the competitive edge of Hong Kongs container port lies with serving the wider inland areas of Mainland China and the tapping of medium- and long-distance container freight, more economically transported by railways than by road or inland river.

Changing Urban Form in Hong Kong: What Are the Challenges on Sustainable Transportation?

ABSTRACT This study examines the changing urban form and its implications on sustainable transportation in Hong Kong. It begins by classifying the city into the traditional urban core, new growth, and rural areas. Like many other parts of the world, more and more people in Hong Kong have opted to live farther away from the core areas over the past few decades. What are the implications on peoples travel behavior and, hence, the sustainability of the citys transportation system? The findings shed light on the implications of urban expansion on sustainable transportation, especially in Asian cities characterized by lower car ownership rates and more compact urban development.

Road Safety Strategies: A Comparative Framework and Case Studies

Abstract This paper proposes a nine‐component analytical framework for developing, comparing, and evaluating road safety strategies. The nine components are: (1) vision; (2) objectives; (3) targets; (4) action plan; (5) evaluation and monitoring; (6) research and development; (7) quantitative modelling; (8) institutional framework; and (9) funding. While the first four components are essential for the formulation of a road safety strategy, the remaining components are key to its successful implementation. To demonstrate the usefulness of this comparative framework, we examine the road safety strategies of six selected administrations: Australia, California, Great Britain, Japan, New Zealand, and Sweden. In these case studies, we extract and highlight good practices in the formulation and implementation of their road safety strategies. The proposed framework also provides a systematic approach for assessing road safety strategies in other administrations. The evaluation of the six case studies forms a benchmarking platform for the planning, formulation, and implementation of good practices for road safety strategies.

Pedestrian injuries in an ageing society: insights from hospital trauma registry.

BACKGROUND Traffic safety of the elderly is a growing public health issue. METHODS This study makes use of a linked hospital and police database. A total of 4,290 traffic casualty records were analyzed. The proportions of serious injury and mortality for different age groups are compared between pedestrian and nonpedestrian injuries. Logistic regression analysis is used to examine the relative significance of age, injury pattern, gender, crash time, and vehicle type on each dependent variable of hospital stay > or = 7 days, injury severity score (ISS) > 15, ISS > 30, and mortality. RESULTS The shares of pedestrian casualties with serious injury increased with higher age groups. Among pedestrian casualties, aged > or = 65 years was the only statistically significant variable in accounting for ISS > 30 and mortality. Aged > or = 65 years, lower extremity injury and heavy vehicles were important in accounting for long hospital stay. For ISS > 15, aged > or = 65 years, head or face injury, and thorax or abdomen injury were significant risk factors. After adjusting for confounding factors, the risk of hospital stay > or = 7 days, ISS > 15, ISS > 30, and mortality for an elderly pedestrian injury was 4.24 times (95% CI, 2.46-7.29), 2.77 times (95% CI, 1.17-6.55), 5.16 times (95% CI, 1.38-19.34), and 3.61 times (95% CI, 1.16-11.25) higher than a younger adult (aged 15-64 years). In contrast, age was not a significant independent risk factor for serious injury and mortality among nonpedestrian injuries. CONCLUSIONS Most developed economies are facing the problem of ageing. To develop an effective strategy to deal with elderly pedestrian trauma, a good quality linked database is a prerequisite.

The Textile and Clothing Industries Under the Fifth Kondratieff Wave: Some Insights from the Case of Hong Kong

This paper proposes that the worlds textile and clothing industries have become increasing vertically disintegrated with a few flexible production regions (the “cream” portion) engaging in creative, innovative, dynamic and high value-added activities, and an expanding number and spatial extent of regions (the “cake” portion) taking part in low value-added activities. In-between is an “artificial” layer protected by the international regulatory framework. This layer has characteristics of both the “cream” and “cake” layers. On the one hand, the labor force in this layer suffers from low job mobility and low-paid blue-collar work of the “cake portion” and is dominated by female semi-skilled workers. On the other hand, industrialists and governments in this layer enjoy the profits and high export values of the “cream” portion. Under the Fifth Kondratieff wave, the textile and clothing industries have become increasingly coordinated and controlled by a thinner “cream” layer. Over time, regions in the “cake” portion will find it increasingly difficult to transform themselves into “cream” because of deep-seated structural and geographic differences.

Bicycle Crash Casualties in a Highly Motorized City

The characteristics of bicycle crashes in cities where bicycles are a minor transport mode have received little attention in road safety research. However, the characteristics of these injury-inflicting bicycle crashes are expected to be very different from those happening in cities where cycling is generally considered as one of the major transport modes. Specifically, this study has the following three objectives: (1) to conduct the first scientific spatial analysis of bicycle crashes in Hong Kong; (2) to analyze the circumstances leading to bicycle crashes; and (3) to conduct an epidemiological study on injury patterns of cyclist casualties. Various spatial and statistical tools, including buffer analysis, chi-square tests, analysis-of-variance and binary logistic regression, are used to analyze the bicycle crashes in Hong Kong from 2005-2007. An important finding of this paper is that the bicycle safety problem has a clear spatial dimension. The crash circumstances in different parts of the city differed systematically. Furthermore, the findings suggest that initiatives to develop new cycle tracks and to encourage bicycles as a transport mode must be planned carefully with new infrastructure and policies to ensure the safety of cyclists.