Forecasting road traffic accident deaths in India using seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average model

Abstract

Background: As per World Health Organization (WHO) report 1.24 million people die each year as a result of road traffic accidents (RTA) globally. A vast majority of 20-50 million people suffer from non-fatal injuries, many of them ultimately end in disability. Forecasting RTA deaths could help in planning the intervention at the right time in an effective way.Methods: An attempt was made to forecast the RTA deaths in India with seasonal auto regressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model. ARIMA model is one of the common methods which are used for forecasting variables as the method is very easy and requires only long time series data. The method of selection of appropriate ARIMA model has been explained in detail. Month wise RTA deaths for previous years data was collected from Govt. of India website. Data for 12 years (2001 to 2012) was extracted and appropriate ARIMA model was selected. Using the validated ARIMA model the RTA deaths are forecasted for 8 years (2013-2020).Results: The appropriate SARIMA (1,0,0) (2,1,0) 12 model was selected based on minimal AIC and BIC values. The forecasted RTA deaths show increasing trend overtime.Conclusions: There is an increasing trend in the forecasted numbers of road traffic accidental deaths and it also shows seasonality of RTA deaths with more number of accidents during the month of April and May in every years. It is recommended that the policy makers and transport authority should pay more attention to road traffic accidents and plan some effective intervention to reduce the burden of RTA deaths.