Impact of methodological choices on road safety ranking

Abstract

In this research we focus on the road safety domain which is currently showing much interest in the use of indicators. For the most influencing road safety risk factors, indicators are presently being developed and data collected on the European level [4,5]. Although countries are often compared on their level of road safety by means of the number of traffic deaths per million inhabitants, the development of a road safety performance index will provide valuable insights. There are a number of disadvantages linked to accident data, like for example the lack of uniformity in definitions and the problem of under-registration [6]. However, the most important drawback is that knowledge of the number of accidents and casualties in a country is insufficient to understand the processes that lead to these accidents. If one wants to enhance the road safety level in a country, a set of measures has to be identified, able to tackle the real problem.