WP 3 – Safety Performance Indicators

D3.1 State of the art report

Road safety can be assessed in terms of the social costs of crashes and injuries. However, simply counting crashes or injuries is an imperfect indicator of the level of road safety. When crashes occur it is the “worst case scenario” of insecure operational conditions of road traffic. Work Package 3 of SafetyNet deals with Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs). A Safety Performance Indicator is any variable, which is used in addition to the figures of crashes or injuries to measure changes in the operational conditions of road traffic.

This report starts off with a description of the general methodology for SPIs. Then, the report describes the state of the art in the seven research areas. Firstly, the theoretical backgrounds of each research area are given. Secondly, the first results from the questionnaire (that was sent to 27 countries: the 25 EU Member States, plus Switzerland and Norway) are presented. And thirdly, the first ideas on the details of the SPIs that could be used in the future are described.

State of the art Report on Road Safety Performance Indicators

D3.3 Plan phase 2

Safety performance indicators (SPIs) can be used to improve our understanding of the causes of accidents, and they can be used to monitor policy interventions. In that sense, they are one of the elements of a safety management system.

SafetyNet Work Package 3 deals with these indicators. On the basis of the ETSC report 'Transport Safety Performance Indicators', seven domains for SPIs have been defined:

• Alcohol and drug-use
• Speeds
• Protection systems
• Daytime running lights
• Vehicles (passive safety)
• Roads
• Trauma management

In Work Package 3, seven tasks are defined that work on each of the respective SPI domains.

The SafetyNet project consists of two phases. Phase 1 spans the first 18 project months, phase 2 the remaining project period. This document describes the plans for phase 2 of the project (months 19-48).

• Plan phase 2 (not publicly available)

D3.4 Dissemination to the Road Safety Information System

Safety performance indicators (SPIs) can be used to improve our understanding of the causes of accidents, and they can be used to monitor policy interventions. In that sense, they are one of the elements of a safety management system.

On the basis of the ETSC report 'Transport Safety Performance Indicators' (2001), seven domains for SPIs have been defined:

• Alcohol and drug-use
• Speeds
• Protection systems
• Daytime running lights
• Vehicles (passive safety)
• Roads
• Trauma management

This deliverable deals with the communication of findings through the European Road Safety Observatory website. The report contains those web texts, published on the website, that are adapted from the contents of Deliverable D3.1 from SafetyNet WP3, the State-of-the-art report. The web text focuses on the explanation of the concept of SPIs, and gives background details of two SPI areas: alcohol & drugs, and speeds. In the future new web texts related to the subject of Road Safety Performance Indicators will be added to the ERSO website.

Dissemination to the Road Safety Information System

D3.5 Safety Performance Indicators: posters for the first SafetyNet Conference

Work Package 3 of SafetyNet deals with Safety Performance Indicators. They measure the operational conditions of the road traffic system. Work Package 3 deals with seven topics: alcohol and drug use; speeds; protective systems; daytime running lights; vehicles; road; trauma management.

This deliverable concerns the contribution of Work Package 3 to the first SafetyNet conference, which was held in Prague on May 10 and 11, 2006. Each topic prepared a poster with an overview of the state-of-play. In this document, these posters are assembled.

Each topic has a preferred indicator, which can be used for measuring safety performance across countries. This indicator is accompanied by requirements that should be met by the data, in order to be able to calculate the indicator. For most tasks, values could be calculated for the indicators by using the available data. Data are not available for all countries and/or all topics.

Safety Performance Indicators: posters for the first SafetyNet Conference

D3.6 SPI: Theory

This document provides details about the theory behind the development of Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) in seven major areas which are central to the fields of activity in road safety in Europe. The fields of activity were selected as a result of reviews of national road safety plans in many of the EU countries and around the world and are considered the central themes of activity in road safety, necessary to bring about a significant improvement in road safety in the EU countries.

Within each field, SPIs were developed that:

• are directly related to the specific field of activity
• can be quantitatively measured;
• can provide the basis for the assessment of the level of road safety in each country;
• can serve as an indicator to describe the level of activity in that field and country;
• can provide a yardstick for comparison.

Comparisons can be before and after certain measures are taken or they can be comparisons between countries.

The document provides the rationale behind the performance indicator development, the proofs for their relevance in the specific fields and the existing limitations that led to the adoption of the specific SPIs. It also provides some recommendations for the possible improvements required to obtain better SPIs.

Safety Performance Indicators: Theory

D3.7a SPIs: Country Comparisons

This report compares the safety performance of 27 European countries – the 25 EU member states, Norway and Switzerland. The comparison was done for seven road safety related areas: alcohol and drugs, speeds, protective systems, daytime running lights, vehicles (passive safety), roads, and trauma management, on basis of the theory presented in Hakkert, Gitelman and Vis (2007) using the data obtained from the collaborating countries (see Vis and Van Gent (2007)). When indicator values were available but not comparable due to e.g. lack of data quality, this is explained.

In spite of all considerations and limitations, we are able to present a great number of comparisons in this report, or to present the figures that can form the basis for future comparisons. Reliable comparisons are made for the areas daytime running lights, protective systems, vehicles (passive safety), and trauma management. Only limited comparisons are made for the areas speeds and roads. Due to great differences in data quality between the different countries, comparisons in the area alcohol and drugs is not possible. The results for that area are presented for information only and will form the basis for future study.

Road Safety Performance Indicators: Country Comparisons

D3.7b SPIs: Country Profiles

This report presents, for each of 27 European countries – the 25 EU member states, Norway and Switzerland - the available data that is relevant for the calculation of Safety Performance Indicators.

Road Safety Performance Indicators: Country Profiles

D3.8 SPI Manual

This SPI Manual aims to assist countries in establishing the necessary systems of data collection for producing national SPIs, in each one of the predefined safety fields, and to make them comparable on a European level. For each safety area, the report defines quantitative SPIs, demonstrates existing practices for their measurements, provides best practice examples (when available), and details the procedures which are necessary to collect and process the required data for the estimation of the SPIs' set on a national level.
In addition, the report provides a more general theoretical background concerning the sampling issues in estimating SPIs (in general and in the context of specific SPI areas). Regarding setting up an SPI survey, the main questions considered are: sampling procedure to obtain a national sample; sampling size; sampling error; stratified sampling (combination into a single SPI by weighting); representativeness of the results and estimating confidence intervals of the SPI values. These issues are discussed in Chapter 2 and in the Statistical Appendix.

SPI Manual