Macro-indicators

The following macros indicate when programs or processes are waiting ... 

During these overseas experiences and our visits to different countries, I had the opportunity to discuss road safety development with local professionals and consultants. There I also had the opportunities to attend various conferences, seminars and workshops and to hsten to experts from different countries. This was a rewarding learning experience, which was especially meaningful for me in terms of future contacts. There were always questions raised during this work, for instance, how do we define and measure road safety development in a country How do we determine the progress this country has achieved How do we estabhsh targets for road safety improvement in a country Until now, there is no simple answer to these questions. This has inspired me to develop sets of macro-indicators that can be used as appropriate benchmarks to compare the performance of different countries. I started to use previous results of the projects as a point of departure, in order to build a model from the conclusions drawn. 

The Theoretical Framework of Macro-Indicators and Models in Road Safety... 

The first step in doing international comparisons is to come up with a comprehensive set of macro-indicators that includes all possible main valuable parameters in road safety of human-vehicle-road-environment-regulation instead of considering a few factors such as accident rates per population or per kilometre driven. Selecting a set of macro-performance indicators is a complex issue where the importance of each indicator depends on its type, avaUabUily and quality. Many previous studies and models (discussed in detail in the next section) have presented few indicators on the national level. The reasons can be given briefly here as follows (i) the lack of availability and rehabihty of dat (ii) the need for simpUfication in the study (model) to avoid any possible errors (iii) to reduce the costs of the study. 

I have attempted to identify a set of performance macro-indicators from a literature review, either in how they illustrate road safety level and development in a country or how they offer a significant affect on accident rates. The quantitative relationship between the indicators and risk was discussed in the previous section. The indicators should be selected on the basis of the discussed criteria for selecting macro-performance indicators. Special attention has to be paid to indicators covered by data, which is already available. The chosen categories and indicators will not provide a complete picture of road safety issues in a country, rather they will give summary information on the national performance in the country, which can help in comparing its progress and experience with other countries. 

The full summary list of the possible macro-indicators in each category is shown in Table 3.2. The indicators have been classified into three classes according to their data availability, quality and type. When dealing with data availability, as with quality, it is necessary to have clear description of what is meant by data quality or data availability . For instance, one acceptable indicator is fatalities per vehicle kilometre and it is an important element in road safety, but this measure is still not available in most developing countries. On the other hand, the indicator percentage of motorways per road network has poor quality of data and there is difference of definitions of road standards across countries. In fact, there are several indicators that may play an essential role in the development of RSDI, but unfortunately these indicators are hard to measure for now and they will be kept for further and future development. 

The increase in availability of data will improve the quality of data. In other words, the quality of indicators is good when data is available. I attempted to estimate the size of quality and availability of the indicators as be given in (Table 3.2), although it is often hard to estimate that. However, any such future attempt would require especial techniques (done directly with computer) used to assess the availability and quality of data in different countries worldwide. The selection of the key macro-indicators is not final. The indicators will continue to be developed and refined. Further, efforts will be made to enable high quality data delivery. 

In appendix 1, the descriptive statistics of aU selected macro-indicators is presented. The table shows the actual values (before normalisation) and the differences in the indicators among the ASEAN countries and Sweden. These eleven indicators allow regional/intemational comparisons and RSDI construction. A brief look to the table shows that the severity index is not fuUy correlated (ASEAN data) with life expectancy and this is probably due to unreliable figures for injuries in some ASEAN countries. 

The new edition of RSDI may seek more comprehensive data for a larger number of dimensions and indicators. There are several indicators that may play an essential role to the development of RSDI, but unfortunately these indicators are currently not available and they require further development and collection of data in future for a large number of countries, especially from developing countries. In the future it is hoped to develop a set of macro-indicators that will be widely useful, regularly updated, available and can cover future data needs. The indicators proposed in Table 3.2 must be put into practice in the future and tested. Perhaps there is a need to explore new methods that can measure/assess the indicators that have missing data and poor quality of data. Today these problems are quite frequent and it is probable that woik on solving these problems will continue in the future. 

Andrew, S., (2004). Literature Review of Frameworks for Macro-indicators. Centre for the Study of Living Standards. Ottawa, Canada. 

Appendix. 1 Basic Macro-Indicators in ASEAN countries and Sweden (year 2002) ... 

Notes 1. Xi, X2, X3.... Xu are the selected macro-indicators that used to calculate RSDI. 2. The first three indicators and Xio are derived from the ASNet database for ASEAN countries (which presented in Chapter 4), while the main source of data for these indicators in Sweden are the International Road Federation (IRF). 3. X4, X7, Xs, X9, Xu and HDI are taken from the latest Human Development Report 2004 and the World Development Indicators (WDI). For details, see httti //hdr.undp.org/2004/, http //www.worldbank.org/data/. 4. The source of X5 and Xe in ASEAN countries is ASNet database. In some cases, the ADB consultants estimated this data. For Sweden, X5 and Xe are taken from (Koornstra et al., 2002). 5. The seat belt use rates cover mostly the front-seat occupants only. 6. The GNP per capita is the GNP in current U.S. dollars as calculated by the United Nations and the World Bank. 

The American Chemical Society has long occupied a central position within the institution of chemistry. The choice of a president for the Society symbolizes the institution s values. The careers of presidents display something of the changing nexus between occupation, profession and discipline. Those values and that nexus may be partially exposed by a highly disaggregated analysis using what might be termed micro-indicators . In this last section we shall turn away from macro-indicators of the institution of chemistry and instead use micro-indicators to elucidate certain matters of interest. The use of micro-indicators also provides a specimen of the possibilities inherent in the analysis of fine structure, an effort which may be mounted within the frame secured by macro-indicators of the kind presented earlier in this work. ... 

These examples suggest some of the ways in which it is possible to move between macro- and micro-indicators, and from the latter to familiar levels of historical analysis. Our report has necessarily focused on macro-indicators in an endeavor to assay the changing structure of American chemistry over a century-long period. The assembling of those indicators is one move toward the creation of a context in which more fruitful historical and policy questions may be posed. Many of those questions hinge on a detailed knowledge of the fine structure of events, of a kind that depends on the availability of many micro-indicators. 

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