Walking and Cycling
Reporting on Serious Road Traffic Casualties
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
1 December 2011
- A complete picture of casualty totals from road crashes is needed to fully assess the consequences of road crashes and monitor progress.
- Injury information should complement information on fatal crashes to give a fuller picture of road crashes. Information on injuries should become more important for international comparisons.
- Police data should remain the main source for road crash statistics. However, because of underreporting problems and possible bias (for example with differing rates of reporting by vehicle type), police data should be complemented by hospital data, which are the next most useful source.
- The data from hospital emergency departments, available in some countries, should be monitored regularly and researched to determine if they might shed more light on road casualties.
- The assessment of the severity of injuries should preferably be done by medical professionals, and not by the police officer at the scene of the crash.
- Medical staff should be trained in order to systematically classify (road traffic) injuries using ICD International Classification of Diseases and to assess severities with indices such as the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) or the Maximum Abbreviated Injury (MAIS). This information -- without personal information -- should be made easily available for statistical purposes, policymaking and research.
- Besides police data and hospital data, other data sources are available. These have a limited value on their own, and cannot replace police or hospital data, but can be used to build a more balanced and comprehensive picture, to enrich the main data sources, and as a quality check.
- For linking data, the deterministic method is preferred if a unique personal identifier is available; otherwise the probabilistic method is a good alternative.
- The six assumptions needed to use the capture-recapture method must be considered carefully. Using this method combined with linking police and hospital data may be appropriate to give a fuller picture of road casualties.
- Having an internationally agreed definition of “serious” injuries will help the safety research community to better understand the consequences of road crashes and to monitor progress. Given the existing knowledge and practices, IRTAD proposes to define a ‘seriously injured road casualty’ as a person with injuries assessed at level 3 or more on the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale i.e. "MAIS3+".
Moving Freight with Better Trucks
Research Report, Policy Insights,
18 April 2011
- The freight transport task is growing rapidly in most regions and requires effective utilisation of all modes of transport.
- The safety and environmental impacts of road haulage require regulatory intervention for optimal outcomes.
- Compliance can be improved greatly through legislation that assigns responsibility.
- Compliance regimes can be enhanced by exploiting technological innovations.
- A performance based approach to regulation offers the potential to meet community objectives for road freight transport more fully.
- Many higher capacity vehicles have equivalent or even better intrinsic safety characteristics in some respects than most common workhorse trucks.
- Truck crash energies mean safety regulation must pay particular attention to managing truck speeds and driver alertness and impairment.
- Higher capacity vehicles have potential to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
- Higher capacity vehicles can result in fewer vehicle-kilometres travelled.
- The lower unit costs offered by higher productivity trucks could result in increased overall demand for road freight transport and a transfer of freight from other modes.
- Road pricing systems can be developed to manage use of the transport network more efficiently.
- Road infrastructure and trucks need to be developed in concert.
- Significant opportunities for improvement of the regulation of heavy trucks have been identified.
Ten Stylised Facts About Household Spending on Transport
Statistics Brief, Policy Insights,
1 January 2011
- Housing, transport and food are the main household budgetary drivers.
- Share of transport on total household spending has remained relatively constant over time.
- The share of transport in household expenditure increases with welfare.
- The main driver of household spending is the ownership (and use) of cars.
- Increased spending on transport by richer households is mainly directed to cars.
- Transport spending structure and level changes dramatically only for households with the oldest consumers.
- Unemployed and retired spend least on transport – but still rely on cars.
- Bigger families spend more on transport (and use of car).
- Degree of urbanisation has only a small impact on transport spending shares in rich countries.
- Transport spending is rapidly increasing in China.