ROAD SAFETY DEVELOPMENT INDEX RSDI

The purpose of this chapter is to briefly present the outline of this thesis as well as explaining the reasons why this study is of interest. A brief description of the concept of Road Safety Development Index (RSDI) is given and the aim of the study is highlighted. In addition, this chapter outlines the structure of the thesis. 

The proposed index in this study is the development of Road Safety Development Index (RSDI), which has been initiated from a desire to create a benchmark of national performance and development in road safety and to rank country s level on a global scale and over a time period. The first outline of the RSDI is shown in (A1 Haji Asp, 2003). 

The first step in designing a road safety development index (RSDI) is to come up with a comprehensive set of indicators, which includes as far as possible aU the main parameters in road safely of human-vehicle-road-enviromnent-regulation, instead of considering a few factors such as accident rates per population or per kilometoe driven. In addition, this index should be as relevant as possible for different countries, especially in developing countries. The choice of accident risk and exposure variables is necessary to what is available in international data and what is considered necessary for meaningfiil comparisons. Commonly, frequencies of aimual numbers of vehicles, accidents, injured and killed people are some kind quantification and relatively easy to define and to measure in different countries. But differences in definitions, noncollection of data, non-rehabUity of data and under-reporting are problems for effective measurements of road safety. 

The dimensions are calculated as the simple average of the included indicators. Each dimension is given equal weight (one-ninth) in the final RSDI. The Road Safety Development Index (RSDI) is defined as the simple average of these nine dimensions for country j as ... 

A1 Haji, G., Asp, K., (2004). Applying Road Safety Development Index (RSDI) for Big Cities. The 6th International Conference Traffic Safety Management for Big Cities, September 14-15,2004, St. Petersburg, Russia, pp. 218-222. 

Towards a Road Safety Development Index (RSDI)... 

By keeping this goal, some two years ago. I, together with my advisor, met representatives of many departments and organisations in Sweden, such as the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), World Health Organisation (WHO) and Karolinska Institute where we have introduced a new concept of road safety performance, which we called RSDI Road Safety Development Index. We emphasised the broader concept of road safety development more than the accident rates that are currently used. 

Data can be converted into (htferent forms some common forms include percentages, rates, and indices. The national multidimensional index integrates and summarises much information and knowledge about road safety into measurable indicators that will be then converted into a single value. In this section, I will discuss the overall concept of criteria and macro-performance indicators. This will also be useful in designing a multidimensional index Road Safely Development Index (RSDI) (this will be discussed in Chapter five). Figure 3.2 shows hierarchical development of the data and availabihty from local to national level. I focus in this part of the study on the indicators that are used in national and international levels. 

The last proposed dimension of RSDI is the road safety organisational index that measures how much is the cooperation between the key bodies responsible for road safety actions in the country, how much funding is spent on road safety measures. It shows the level of development of national road safety council and NGOs. It shows how far each country is from the goal of national road safely programs (if there is any). This index can be developed further and benefit from other available indices especially those used to assess the management development and organisational culture between countries. This index is not used here because of lack of data. 

The indicators included in RSDI measure road safety development in terms of direct (output or ends) and indhect (means or input). The direct indicators are derived measures e.g. fatalities rates (traffic risk and personal risk) and they are considered as good measures for explaining national road safety development. The indirect indicators are individual means in the way they can describe the development in a particular relevant theme to road safety. Many international indices include both terms in the same index. For example, the Composite Health Index includes infant mortality rates as an ou ut (dhect) indicator of health index. 

At the same time, it might be better if we state a target value for the minimum and maximum values that are identified, according to a special performance scale for each indicator. This can be estimated on the idea that there is potential progress ahead for all countries in road safety development. The indicators contribute differently to the RSDI. The low values of traffic risk, personal risk and severity index show a good safety level in a country, while in contrast the safety issue increases continuously with increase of the values of other indicators. 

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