Hamed Ahangari

Investigation into Impact of Fluctuations in Gasoline Prices and Macroeconomic Conditions on Road Safety in Developed Countries

In most developed countries, the total number of road fatalities peaked in the 1970s. Although the data for road fatalities show a distinctive downward trend, a secondary signal that is more cyclical in nature is also evident. These cyclical variations closely track macroeconomic conditions (usually represented by the unemployment rate) and gasoline prices. While the relationship between transportation safety and unemployment and gasoline prices has been investigated, studies have looked at these variables in isolation from other important factors that affect traffic safety. Accordingly, the authors have developed a comprehensive conceptual model that considers a wide array of factors influencing traffic safety and uses this framework to inform an empirical model. For the study of variation across both time and location, a panel data model was employed, with observations for 16 industrialized countries between 1990 and 2010. In the panel model, the dependent variable was fatality per population, and gas price, unemployment, health index, mobility, and vehicle ownership were the independent variables. The results revealed a significant inverse relationship between gas prices and the road fatality rate after controlling for vehicle miles traveled. The elasticity analysis indicated that a 10% decrease in gasoline prices resulted in a 2.19% increase in road fatalities. Likewise, a 10% decrease in unemployment rate resulted in a 0.65% increase in road fatalities. Also, the results implied that the health index had the highest impact on road fatality rates. Overall, these results provide a better understanding of the underlying causes of periodic variations in road fatalities.

Progress towards zero, an international comparison: Improvements in traffic fatality from 1990 to 2010 for different age groups in the USA and 15 of its peers

INTRODUCTION In January 2015, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced that the official target of the federal government transportation safety policy was zero deaths. Having a better understanding of traffic fatality trends of various age cohorts-and to what extent the US is lagging other countries-is a crucial first step to identifying policies that may help the USDOT achieve its goal. METHOD In this paper we analyze fatality rates for different age cohorts in developed countries to better understand how road traffic fatality patterns vary across countries by age cohort. Using benchmarking analysis and comparative index analysis based on panel data modelling and data for selected years between 1990 and 2010, we compare changes in the rate of road traffic fatality over time, as well as the absolute level of road traffic fatality for six age groups in the US, with 15 other developed countries. RESULTS-CONCLUSIONS Our findings illustrate tremendous variations in road fatality rates (both in terms of the absolute values and the rates of improvement over time) among different age cohorts in all of the 16 countries. Looking specifically at the US, our analysis shows that safety improvements for Youngsters (15-17 years old) was much better than for other age groups, and closely tracked peer countries. In sharp contrast, Children (0-14 years old) and Seniors (+65 years old) in the US, fare very poorly when compared to peer countries. For example, in 2010, Children in the US were a stunning five times more likely to experience a road traffic fatality than Children in the UK. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS This startling statistic suggests an immediate need to explore further the causes and potential solutions to these disparities. This is especially important if countries, including the US, are to achieve the ambitious goals set out in Zero Vision initiatives.

Assessing the determinants of changes in traffic fatalities in developed countries

Road safety is a considerable public health concern around the world. National and local governments regularly introduce legislation or strengthen enforcement of existing laws to make roads safer. Although road fatalities in almost all developed countries have decreased over the past four decades, the rate of change has varied tremendously from country to country. The goal of this study was to provide a better understanding of the relative rate of improvement in road fatalities in different developed countries over the past four decades. Observations from 16 industrialized countries in a series of panel data models were used to create two indexes to compare how well the countries were doing with traffic fatalities at different points in time: the overall traffic fatality index, which was based on raw data but adjusted to control for structural factors that affect all countries over time, and the adjusted traffic fatality index (ATFI), which had additional controls for gasoline price, socioeconomic factors...

Automobile-dependency as a barrier to vision zero, evidence from the states in the USA

With a traffic fatality rate of 10.6 per 100,000 as of 2013-more than triple that in the UK, the Netherlands, and Sweden-the United States has the worst traffic safety performance of all developed countries. Statewide variations are even more pronounced. North Dakota registers more than twice the national average and five times the rate of Massachusetts. We used panel models and annual data from 1997 to 2013 to capture the effect of seven separate sets of factors that influence traffic safety: exposure, travel behavior, socioeconomics, macroeconomics, safety policies, and mitigating factors such as health care. The results of our panel models and supplementary analysis of state effects show that two variables - Vehicle Miles Traveled and Vehicles per Capita-have the strongest impact on traffic fatality rates. This is closely followed by Infant Mortality Rates, the proxy that we used to represent the quality of health care. Policy levers such as Graduated Drivers Licenses (GDL) have improved safety, but to a limited extent. We also found that states with higher urban density and more walking are associated with lower traffic fatality rates. Taken as a whole, our findings suggest that if additional progress is to be made in reducing traffic fatalities, emphasis needs to move beyond simply focusing on policies such as GDL and seat belt laws, which have already been adopted by almost all jurisdictions across the United States. We need to also consider factors that focus on the type of urban form that we are creating to ensure that we are fostering environments that encourage multi-modal transportation such as walking to reduce the VMT and Vehicles per Capita, the two strongest predictors of traffic fatalities.

Relationship Between Human Capital and Transportation Sustainability for the United States and Selected European Countries

There is a growing interest in developing reliable and meaningful composite indexes of transportation sustainability. Several such indexes have been developed, but none have been used for comparing countries. This paper introduces a cost-oriented national transportation sustainability index (NTSI) and uses it to compare the performance of the United States with 27 selected European countries for the years 2005 and 2011. A series of panel data models is then used to investigate the relationship between human capital, macroeconomic and social factors, and transportation sustainability. The results showed that Switzerland was the best performing country on the NTSI in 2005 but was displaced at the top by the United Kingdom in 2011. Other countries that performed quite well were the Nordic countries and some of the older member-nations of the European Union (EU). The United States was by far the worst performing country in terms of transportation sustainability in 2005 and 2011. One interesting finding was the split in the performance of the non–Nordic European Union countries. In general, the newer EU member nations had by far the best performance on the environmental subindex of the NTSI in 2005. But by 2011 this advantage had almost entirely eroded. The numbers suggest that this was caused by a rapid rate of increase in motorization in these countries that was not necessarily paralleled by corresponding changes in their economic performance. Overall, it was found that factors associated with a high level of human capital (such as high health index, high educational attainment, and low poverty level) were also associated with high levels of transportation sustainability. Conversely, high levels of motorization were associated with lower levels of transportation sustainability.

How similar is China's traffic safety pattern to industrialized countries in their early stage of motorization? An analysis of death registration data for large and small/medium cities

ABSTRACT The authors quantify the relationship between traffic fatalities and the motorization rate in China using death registration data for two groups of cities in China (17 large cities and 21 small/medium cities) from 2002 to 2010. Smeeds model is applied to compare the relationship in China to that in other industrialized countries during their early stages of motorization. The study has two principal findings. First, the fatality rate per vehicle decreases with the increase in motorization, a pattern that is consistent with the relationship that Smeed derived for industrialized countries. However, motorization and fatality rate per capita exhibits no clear trend. A second finding is that road safety conditions differ in large cities compared to small/medium cities. A series of ANOVA tests are unable to identify key variables responsible for these different patterns because the within-group differences for gross domestic product per capita, population density, and vehicle per 1,000 people are very large. Findings suggest that (1) though traffic fatality rate per vehicle in China decreased, levels are still very high; (2) besides motorization level, health care systems, car technology and cultural factors have potential linkage to traffic fatalities. Making more data available for individual cities would help stakeholders better identify the causes and potential remedies for this crucial safety issue.