Quantifying transport safety success at the regional level: A guide to policy and practice on investment for G20

Abstract

Dramatic numbers of road traffic casualties and resulting economic losses have posed significant obstacles to implementing sustainable development and are bound to disrupt economic stability and social well-being. Given these circumstances, it is vital for the government to evaluate the country's current road safety development in comparison with, and to learn from, the situations of better-performing countries. This study develops an efficient and comprehensive gauging system, which combines criteria importance through the intercriteria correlation (CRITIC), preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE II), and principal component analysis (PCA), namely CRITIC–PROMETHEE II–PCA, to provide the G20 countries with a tool for quantifying transport safety success. Comparisons of the results with those derived from other classical approaches confirm the robustness and feasibility of the proposed methodology across different socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds. This will allow policymakers to formulate corresponding reform measures and allocate investments rationally. This tool will notably enable the G20 to monitor road safety progress, set short- and long-term reform goals, introduce relevant regulations, and distribute investment and resources in a quick and timely manner. The proposed methodology could be used as a model for similar studies conducted in other parts of the world.