An Evaluation of the Road Safety Performance of City and Zone Administrations in the Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study evaluates the road safety performance of all city and zone administrations in the Amhara region, Ethiopia, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. Speed, priority to pedestrians, the right of way for other vehicles, safe driving distance, technical vehicle errors, illegal pedestrian behaviour, and road conditions were the road safety indicators chosen to present the current road safety situation in the study area. Experts assigned the most significant weight to the speed, priority to pedestrians, and safe driving distance indicator. Linear and geometric aggregation have been applied as index methodology. The rankings of the city and zone administrations were drawn separately based on the indicators' weighted share, index score, and road safety outcome (i.e. the number of fatalities per ten thousand vehicles). There were no significant differences between the two aggregation methods in the ranking of the cities, but there were some in the zone rankings. However, the spearman's correlation results demonstrated that the two aggregation rankings were reasonable estimates of the road safety outcome ranking and that the index methods are feasible and practical. The study's findings also confirmed that behavioural indicators comprise a large proportion of the road safety index, in which speed was the most dominant indicator.