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Road safety in low-income countries: state of knowledge and future directions

Road safety in low-income countries: state of knowledge and future directions
Road safety in low-income countries: state of knowledge and future directions
Road safety in low-income countries (LICs) remains a major concern. Given the expected increase in traffic exposure due to the relatively rapid motorisation of transport in LICs, it is imperative to better understand the underlying mechanisms of road safety. This in turn will allow for planning cost-effective road safety improvement programs in a timely manner. With the general aim of improving road safety in LICs, this paper discusses the state of knowledge and proposes a number of future research directions developed from literature reviews and expert elicitation. Our study takes a holistic approach based on the Safe Systems framework and the framework for the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety. We focused mostly on examining the problem from traffic engineering and safety policy standpoints, but also touched upon other sectors, including public health and social sciences. We identified ten focus areas relating to (i) under-reporting; (ii) global best practices; (iii) vulnerable groups; (iv) disabilities; (v) road crash costing; (vi) vehicle safety; (vii) proactive approaches; (viii) data challenges; (ix) social/behavioural aspects; and (x) capacity building. Based on our findings, future research ought to focus on improvement of data systems, understanding the impact of and addressing non-fatal injuries, improving estimates on the economic burden, implementation research to scale up programs and transfer learnings, as well as capacity development. Our recommendations, which relate to both empirical and methodological frontiers, would lead to noteworthy improvements in the way road safety data collection and research is conducted in the context of LICs.
road safety, low-income countries, under-reporting, best practices, vulnerable groups, injury severity, road crash costing, crash data, capacity building
2071-1050
6249
Heydari, Shahram
0d12a583-a4e8-4888-9e51-a50d312be1e9
Hickford, Adrian
55d34672-b7bb-47d4-97a6-095304c429de
Mcilroy, Rich
68e56daa-5b0b-477e-a643-3c7b78c1b85d
Turner, Jeff
35309b03-e48a-4ab4-9535-e7ed64badf24
Bachani, Abdulgafoor M.
fe26e074-9cda-4f4d-951f-0acee6943459
Heydari, Shahram
0d12a583-a4e8-4888-9e51-a50d312be1e9
Hickford, Adrian
55d34672-b7bb-47d4-97a6-095304c429de
Mcilroy, Rich
68e56daa-5b0b-477e-a643-3c7b78c1b85d
Turner, Jeff
35309b03-e48a-4ab4-9535-e7ed64badf24
Bachani, Abdulgafoor M.
fe26e074-9cda-4f4d-951f-0acee6943459

Heydari, Shahram, Hickford, Adrian, Mcilroy, Rich, Turner, Jeff and Bachani, Abdulgafoor M. (2019) Road safety in low-income countries: state of knowledge and future directions. Sustainability, 11 (22), 6249. (doi:10.3390/su11226249).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Road safety in low-income countries (LICs) remains a major concern. Given the expected increase in traffic exposure due to the relatively rapid motorisation of transport in LICs, it is imperative to better understand the underlying mechanisms of road safety. This in turn will allow for planning cost-effective road safety improvement programs in a timely manner. With the general aim of improving road safety in LICs, this paper discusses the state of knowledge and proposes a number of future research directions developed from literature reviews and expert elicitation. Our study takes a holistic approach based on the Safe Systems framework and the framework for the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety. We focused mostly on examining the problem from traffic engineering and safety policy standpoints, but also touched upon other sectors, including public health and social sciences. We identified ten focus areas relating to (i) under-reporting; (ii) global best practices; (iii) vulnerable groups; (iv) disabilities; (v) road crash costing; (vi) vehicle safety; (vii) proactive approaches; (viii) data challenges; (ix) social/behavioural aspects; and (x) capacity building. Based on our findings, future research ought to focus on improvement of data systems, understanding the impact of and addressing non-fatal injuries, improving estimates on the economic burden, implementation research to scale up programs and transfer learnings, as well as capacity development. Our recommendations, which relate to both empirical and methodological frontiers, would lead to noteworthy improvements in the way road safety data collection and research is conducted in the context of LICs.

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Accepted/In Press date: 4 November 2019
Published date: 7 November 2019
Keywords: road safety, low-income countries, under-reporting, best practices, vulnerable groups, injury severity, road crash costing, crash data, capacity building

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 435788
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/435788
ISSN: 2071-1050
PURE UUID: bff064bf-b461-4566-8054-1e8a956801e6
ORCID for Adrian Hickford: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6414-9064
ORCID for Rich Mcilroy: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0326-8101

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Date deposited: 20 Nov 2019 17:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:47

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Contributors

Author: Shahram Heydari
Author: Adrian Hickford ORCID iD
Author: Rich Mcilroy ORCID iD
Author: Jeff Turner
Author: Abdulgafoor M. Bachani

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