Abstract
Trends and underlying patterns should be identified in the timely distribution of road traffic offenses to increase traffic safety. In this study, a time series analysis was used to study the incidence rate of road traffic violations on Iranian rural roads. Road traffic volume and offenses data from March 2011 to October 2019 were aggregated. Interrupted time series were used to evaluate the impact of increasing fuel cost in June of 2013 and July of 2014 and the currency devaluation of Rial vs. US dollars in July of 2017 on trends and patterns, traffic volume, and number of offenses. A change-point detection (CPD) analysis was also used to identify singular changes in the frequency of traffic offenses. Results show a general decline in the number of overtaking and speeding offenses of −24.31% and −13.23%, respectively, due to the first increase in fuel cost. The second increase only reduced overtaking by 20.97%. In addition, Iran’s currency devaluation reduced the number of overtaking offenses by 26.39%. Modeling a change-point detection and a Mann-Kendall Test of traffic offenses in Iran, it was found that the burden of violations was reduced.
Highlights
Road traffic injuries and fatalities are an important worldwide concern for public health and global programs have been initiated to decrease their number [1,2,3]
This study evaluates the effectiveness of increased fuel costs and Iranian economic conditions on traffic safety by using traffic volume and offenses data as surrogate measures to see whether this relationship between economic factors and road safety measures happened in rural areas in Iran
The impact of increased fuel costs and the devaluation of Rial vs. Dollar was analyzed with interrupted time series, Mann-Kendall Test, and change-point detection (CPD) to evaluate whether these elements might reduce the number of road traffic offenses
Summary
Road traffic injuries and fatalities are an important worldwide concern for public health and global programs have been initiated to decrease their number [1,2,3]. Based on the Global Status Report on Road Safety, each day, 3700 people lose their lives due to road related crashes [4]. Undeveloped and developing countries (or low and middle income countries–LMIC) are mostly represented in all these traffic deaths, with 93% of the world’s fatalities. This is despite the fact that these countries only possess 60% of the world’s fleet of vehicles. Almost half of the road related injuries in LMIC occur among vulnerable users, such as pedestrians, bicycle riders, and motorcyclists
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