Measuring the development of Chinese provincial road safety over the period 2007–2016

Abstract

With a view to analyzing the development of road safety over time, we hereby present an approach for measuring the phenomenon. This method was constructed based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist productivity index (MPI), so it was named the DEA-MPI method. The core of this method is to compare the output-input ratio among decision-making units in order to measure Chinese provincial road safety development from 2007 to 2016. Three road risk indicators are used as the input, and four road accident result indicators as the output. The results show that most provinces have achieved considerable progress in road safety over the last decade. The total factor productivity change (TFPCH) in road safety decomposes into efficiency change (EFFCH) and technical change (TECHCH). The cumulative EFFCH and TECHCH have decreased and increased, respectively, over the last decade. In 2016, China achieved an improvement in road safety productivity 1.433 times greater than it did in 2007, which is greatly attributable to improvement in frontier technology. This study could help scholars to understand the situation of Chinese provincial road safety in the past decade and provide a guide for policymakers on road safety improvement.