The sources of the Kuznets relationship between road fatalities and economic growth

This paper reports the results of an empirical analysis of the Kuznets curve relationship between per capita income and road fatalities across 60 countries over the period 1972-2004. This relationship hypothesizes that the number of road fatalities increases with increasing motorization in the early stages of economic growth. Eventually, due to advances in technical, policy and political institutions, it declines as per capita income increases. The quality of political institutions as well as improvements in medical care and technology are hypothesized to impact road fatalities. Results indicate evidence of a Kuznets curve relationship between per capita income and road fatalities for both highly developed and less developed countries and support our hypothesis that changes in institutional quality and medical improvements underlie the Kuznets relationship. The evidence presented in this study suggests that lowering corruption levels as well as improvements in medical care and technology would help to reduce road fatalities.     

The safety impact of land use changes resulting from bypass road constructions

This paper analyzes the effect of bypass construction on road safety, specifically crash rates on bypass segments and in bypassed communities. It further investigates the effect of bypass construction on those communities’ economic development through changes in the number and spatial distribution of businesses and residential development, and examines whether these changes affect the road-safety level. Finally, it evaluates the effect on road safety of various traffic arrangements implemented in such communities. Drawing on an extensive data collection, the study focuses on Arab cities in the Galilee region of Israel, using cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis.The results show that bypass construction does not necessarily reduce overall crash frequencies or crash rates. It merely shifts road crashes from the highways (the bypass roads) to inner roads (bypassed) and from there to local traffic, with no significant reduction. The findings indicate a large variance in the effects of bypass constructions on safety.     

Improved road accessibility and indirect development effects: evidence from rural Philippines

This paper develops earlier conceptual frameworks and methods for analyzing the indirect development effects of improved road accessibility. The creation of economic opportunity and response to economic opportunity are the two concepts used in the theoretical framework, while time-series data, a road accessibility inventory, and a multi-criteria analysis were the methods used to analyse the indirect effects among households and household firms. A weakness of many impact studies is that they merely chart aggregate economic development. The method employed here includes access to resources by various groups and therefore enables the focus to shift from mere aggregate economic development to also encompass equitable and sustainable social development. The study focused on a rural Philippine fishing community, previously characterized by poor transport conditions and poor accessibility to major markets. It found that the benefits of the road improvement were considerable and benefited a great majority of the population in the fishing community. In addition to the extensive direct effects of the improved road, a number of complementary factors led to substantial indirect effects. These included: abundance of harvested resource in the community; a potential for technical innovations that increased production and productivity; available investment to support this increased production; abundant demand for this increased production in the market region (the market widened in spatial terms and prices were maintained).     

Testing the transport-induced environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis: The role of air and railway transport

The airline and railway industry contribute immensely to economic development, however, its role in environmental pollution requires attention. Here, this study builds on the theoretical pedigree of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis to explore the contribution of the air and railway transportation sector and urbanization to the emission-growth argument. We utilized annual time-frequency data from 1995 to 2014 for a panel of top 10 air passenger carrier countries using robust panel estimators that control for cross-section dependence. The empirical analysis shows a positive significant relationship between emissions and economic growth, thus, economic growth is emission-embedded with limited green growth. The existence of the EKC phenomenon is affirmed for the investigated blocs — where economic growth is prioritized over environmental quality. Additional, while air transportation drives pollution, railway transportation and urbanization decline emission over the sampled period. The results underscore the need for clean and environmentally friendly energy sources for air sector operations.     

The motorcycle to passenger car ownership ratio and economic growth: A cross-country analysis

Cross-country statistics have revealed steady growth in the number of motorcycles in many less advanced economic countries (LAEC) with emerging economies due to increased urbanisation and personal wealth. In contrast, an opposite trend is occurring in advanced economic countries (AEC), with cars replacing motorcycles as income grows. Motor vehicle crashes and injuries are an inevitable consequence of a high motorcycle population. This study focused on understanding how economic growth affects the motorcycle to passenger car (MPC) ownership ratio and what factors underlie this relationship. The data used in this analysis contained a sample of 80 countries at various levels of economic developmental growth over the 48-year period between 1963 and 2010. The results pointed to an inverted U-shaped relationship between the MPC ownership ratio and the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Generally, the MPC ownership ratio increased with income at a lower level and decreased with income at a higher level. The evidence indicated that urbanisation, the total road length per thousand population, and a proxy for purchasing power with regard to vehicle purchases were the underlying factors that contributed to this relationship.     

International standardization compliance in aviation

The commercial aviation industry is global in the sense that passengers travel around the world from destination to destination. It is also global in that the states of the world (countries) regulate the industry domestically and internationally. There is a unique stage where the world comes together to promote aviation, discuss ideas and establish international standards. This stage is the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The 191 current member states signed treaties acknowledging their commitment to abiding by the standards and practices established by ICAO. No state is 100 percent compliant with international standards, however, and the purpose of this paper was to explore the relationship between the fulfillment of compliance by individual member states and the safety of the commercial aviation industry in terms of fatality rates. Using a Negative Binomial regression, the results suggested that there was a relationship between compliance with international safety standards and fatalities, as well as associations between fatality rates and member states levels of GDP and population. Implications of this research apply to all ICAO member states as the concerns grow over growing air travel and airspace congestion over the next several decades.     

Drivers’ acceptance of automatic speed limiters: implications for policy and implementation

It has been suggested that speed limiters will have the most impact on vehicle speeds and hence road safety in general. Whilst it is technically feasible to develop a functional speed control system, it may be more difficult to design a system that drivers actually wish to use. It is essential that drivers’ acceptability towards speed limiters is gauged in order to establish the most effective way to implement the system. The research reported here used a variety of techniques to evaluate acceptability and concluded that although drivers perceive speed limiters to be effective in reducing accidents, there is a need to change perceptions about possible impacts on comfort and safety.     

The art of development: economic and cultural development through art in San Juan la Laguna,Guatemala

This paper examines how artisans experience economic and cultural changes through art sales to tourists in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala; the aim is to analyse experiences from hosts and producers in art tourism. Using a life course approach, the artists in this area expressed how they do not copy the art of their ancestors, but draw on their past to create new art that reflects their experiences, and sell it to tourists at a price they set. Painting on canvas and murals is a way to overcome historical discrimination based on their cultural identity while they explore and communicate their new identities to themselves and outsiders. Therefore the encounter at the art market strengthens both their economic identities and cultural identities. This is contradiction because the two goals are not necessarily complementary. I argue that the painters in San Juan illustrate the art of development because the painters artfully use their new economic and cultural identities to craft a space to negotiate the terms of the encounter with globalization to struggle for a better life.     

Exploring the relationship between truck load capacity and traffic accidents in the European Union

Applying econometric techniques to EU28 panel data and controlling for explanatory variables such as road types, we find that increased truck load capacity does not necessarily aggravate road traffic safety. Specifically, heavy trucks do not seem to be linked with greater numbers of traffic fatalities/accidents, medium trucks appear to be the worst performers in terms of fatalities, and light trucks seem to be the worst for accidents. In summary, our results clarify the complex relationship between truck load capacity and road safety, pointing to the existence of a negative correlation for accidents per capita and an inverse U-shaped curve for fatalities per capita.     

Towards a holistic framework for road safety in Australia

Current road safety programs and thinking in Australia are constructed within a paradigm that tends to accept existing cultural arrangements. Such programs therefore, favour symptomatic solutions and technical and/or physical solutions as a way forward. Fundamental redesign of cultural arrangements is necessary in order to challenge the “culture of speed”. Our research is developing a holistic, social ecological model for reconnecting road safety with communities that value quality of life and slower ways of being. Improving road safety through reduction in the volume and speed of motorised traffic is integrally related to enhancing health and fitness, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving neighbourhood planning and community cohesion. In this regard, community-based travel behaviour change initiatives are deserving of much greater attention in the road safety area. As well as these changes at the personal and community scale, policy changes to urban and transport planning that address the broader issues of sustainability in an era of climate change and peak oil can also be linked to improvements in road safety.     

Air cargo as an economic development engine: A note on opportunities and constraints

This note examines the role that air cargo plays in economic development and factors that condition its impact. After presenting basic empirical relationships between air cargo and both trade and gross domestic product per capita, we discuss three factors that can enhance air cargo's positive impact: air service liberalization, improving customs quality, and reducing corruption. We then model and assess the effects of these three factors on per capita net inward foreign investment and gross domestic product per capita in 63 countries around the world.     

Hotzone identification with GIS-based post-network screening analysis

This paper proposes a two-step method called post-network screening analysis for identifying collision hotzones (i.e., groups of neighboring hotspots) on a road network. The first step is the familiar safety network screening that uses AASHTO’s Highway Safety Manual (HSM) to identify and rank individual locations (i.e., hotspots) according to their potential for safety improvement. The second step is new and involves network-constrained kernel density estimation (KDE), a type of spatial analysis. KDE uses expected collision counts to estimate collision density, and outputs a graphical display that shows areas with a high density of expected collision counts. These are the hotzones. A particularly interesting area of application is the identification of high-collision corridors that may benefit from a program of systemic safety improvements. The proposed method was tested using five years of collision data (2005–2009) for the City of Regina, Saskatchewan. Three different network screening measures were compared: (1) observed collision counts, (2) observed severity-weighted collision counts, and (3) expected severity-weighted collision counts. The study found that observed severity-weighted collision counts produced a dramatic picture of the city’s hotzones, but this picture could be misleading as it could be heavily influenced by a small number of severe collisions. The results obtained from the expected severity-weighted collision counts smoothed the effects of the severity-weighting and successfully reduced regression-to-the-mean bias. A comparison is made between the proposed approach and the results of the HSM’s existing network screening method. As the proposed approach takes the spatial association of roadway segments into account, and is not limited to single roadway segments, the hotzones identified capture a higher number of expected equivalent-property-damage-only (EPDO) collisions than the existing HSM methodology. The study concludes that the proposed two-step method can help transportation safety professionals to prioritize hotzones within high-collision corridors more efficiently and scientifically.     

Progressing road safety through deep change and transformational leadership

In an earlier paper in this journal, we argued that current road safety programs and thinking are constructed within a paradigm that tends to accept existing cultural arrangements. The current paper is a sequel to the earlier one, and outlines significant policy themes emerging from a research project on a holistic approach to road safety. Two overarching themes include the importance of leadership for policy change and implementation, and addressing the more transformative aspects of intervening in a system. A distinction can be drawn between “deep” sustainable change, which usually requires fundamental redesign of the systems involved, and “shallow” adaptive change. Examples of deep change discussed include the much wider application of mobility management, a strong shift to active travel and public transport, and a reconsideration of how time is structured in society, as with the adoption of “Slow Cities” principles. Transformational leadership can draw on a variety of “knowledge cultures”, which can all share in collective decision-making and possible actions for the future. We discuss especially leadership at the worldview, organisational, and community levels. Vision Zero approaches are valuable, but need to be integrated with a common vision for a sustainable transport system developed in conjunction with energy, transport, health, environment, and education agencies. In addition, Vision Zero approaches can be assisted by greater attention to and questioning of embedded cultural practices and behaviour.     

Factors contributing to injury severity in work zone related crashes in New Zealand

Roadworks take place frequently on existing roads in New Zealand. The adverse effects of poor road conditions and reduced road width due to the presence of a work zone on the safety of road users and workers at the work zone have been a matter of concern. Several studies have been conducted to examine the risk factors contributing to the occurrence of road crashes in work zones in different countries. Slow-moving and stopped vehicles near work zones have been found to be the primary cause of crashes and casualties in the work zones. Excessive speed of passing traffic has also been recognized as a crucial factor contributing to work zone related crashes in New Zealand. This study examined the effect of possible risk factors contributing to severe injury and fatality in work zone related crashes in New Zealand. A multinomial logistic regression model was established to determine the association between crash severity and factors such as road environment, vehicle attributes, driver behavior, and crash circumstances, based on the information available on 453 road crashes during the period from 2008 to 2013. The results indicated that the time period, vehicle involvement, and presence of vulnerable road users were the factors that determined the crash severity in work zones. This implies that improvements are required in traffic control and management measures in work zones to enhance road safety in the long run.     

The impact of transport on social exclusion processes with specific emphasis on road user charging

This paper looks at the ways in which transport can impact on social exclusion processes by examining how the introduction of road user charging may affect residents of Bristol. It gives an overview of the concept of transport and social inclusion/exclusion, describes key themes emerging from DfT-funded research conducted in the city and reflects on the importance of consideration of these themes to the policy's successful implementation. By exploring road user charging from both collective and individual perspectives, the paper illustrates how this congestion charging policy could promote social inclusion.     

Does Tourism Really Lead to Peace? A Global View

There has been much rhetoric about tourism's role in promoting world peace. This research takes a global perspective examining the relationship between peace and tourism across 111 different countries using a panel data model using two indicators, international tourist arrivals and the Institute for Economics and Peace's Global Peace Index. The results indicate that tourism is the beneficiary of peace rather than grounds for peace. Peace is most important to tourism in medium income destinations but still important for high income nations. No relationship exists between peace and tourism arrivals for low income nations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tourism and transport systems in mountain environments: analysis of the economic efficiency of cableways in South Tyrol

This paper examines the economic efficiency of cableways in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, Italy, and relates it to sustainability and tourism issues. Cableways represent an environmental-friendly mode of transport that enables access to remote and environmentally delicate areas. Thus, examining cableways efficiency informs policies that foster regional competitiveness from a sustainable development perspective. Employing annual data from 2002 up to 2008, the pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency are computed using a panel Data Envelopment Analysis. Overall, the empirical findings reveal that this type of transport in the Italian Alps can be regarded as relatively economically inefficient and most of the cableways denote decreasing returns to scale. Nevertheless, some distinctive features are detected amongst cableways classified by district. Policy implications are drawn to help economic agents improve their efficiency scores.     

Investigating the associations between road network structure and non-motorist accidents

Road networks channel traffic flow and can impact the volume and proximity of walking and bicycling. Therefore, the structure of road networks—the pattern by which roads are connected—can affect the safety of non-motorized road users. To understand the impact of roads’ structural features on pedestrian and bicyclist safety, this study analyzes the associations between road network structure and non-motorist-involved crashes using data from 321 census tracts in Alameda County, California. Average geodesic distance, network betweenness centrality, and an overall clustering coefficient were calculated to quantify the structure of road networks. Three statistical models were developed using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique for the three structural factors, in addition to other zonal factors including traffic behavior, land use, transportation facility, and demographic features. The results indicate that longer average geodesic distance, higher network betweenness centrality, and a larger overall clustering coefficient were related to fewer non-motorist-involved accidents. Thus, results suggest that: (1) if a network is more highly centered on major roads, there will be fewer non-motorist-involved crashes; (2) a network with a greater average number of intersections on the shortest path connecting each pair of roads tends to experience fewer crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists; and (3) the more clustered road networks are into several sub-core networks, the lower the non-motorist crash count. The three structural measurements can reflect the configuration of a network so that it can be used in other network analyses. More information about the types of road network structures that are conducive to non-motorist traffic safety can help to guide the design of new networks and the retrofitting of existing networks. The estimation results of GWR models explain the spatial heterogeneity of correlations between explanatory factors and non-motorist crashes, which can support regional agencies in establishing local safety policies.     

推进实施深化班组自控型建设的思考

深化自控型班组建设是全路2009年至2011年开展三个＂三年工程＂之一。结合铁路发展新形势下班组作业管理的新变化,围绕深化自控型班组特征、内容和模式建设进行思考,并提出建设性意见。     

The cost of relying on the wrong power—road wear and the importance of the fourth power rule (TP446)

This paper investigates the effect on road wear and deformation of alternatives to the Fourth Power Law in a computable general equilibrium model of Sweden. The alternatives considered are the first through fifth powers, and the results indicate that the results are similar in all cases but when the first power is employed. This follows from the fact that designing the charge according to the first power amounts to a weight-distance charge rather than an axle-weight-distance. The paper also investigates the cost of designing a charge according to the wrong power, i.e. not according to the true relationship between road wear and road use. The results indicate that the cost of choosing the wrong power is relatively small, but slightly higher in the case of the first power. Indeed, there are several implicit costs that seem to have to be taken into account when implementing a charge according to the former power, i.e. a weight-distance charge.