Accident risk analysis based on motorway exposure: an application of benchmarking technique for human safety

Abstract

Accident risk analysis for human safety and infrastructural improvement are key requirements of the engineering sector. The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize problematic segments of roads based upon the risk evaluation concept and to focus on the severity of accidents regarding human life loss and easy manoeuvring. This study includes the concept of considering road segments as decision-making units for application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique which has no compulsion of the distribution function and critical assumptions, unlike the multiple regression models. According to the proposed methodology, a section of Motorway (M-2) Lahore-Islamabad has been analyzed. Out of 200 segments under consideration, 99 segments were selected with at least one accident and one injury or fatality. Furthermore, for risk calculation and ranking of road segments, the DEA technique along with the cross-risk matrix method was applied. This optimization technique could not only be helpful in ranking but also technical decision-making and prioritizations for safety improvement, policymaking and budget allocation.     

Investment and Growth: The Impact of Britain's Post‐War Trunk Roads Programme

In Great Britain, a basic inter‐urban network of motorways was completed in a very short period between the end of 1959 and 1972. We calculate that this substantial investment had the potential to reduce most inter‐urban journey times by about one third. In spite of this, a recent OECD study suggested that the investment had no discernible positive impact on the trend rate of economic growth. We attribute this outcome to a serious misalignment of the early investments with the then predominant flows of industrial and commercial traffics and a significant, and probably endogenous, increase in real wages in a road transport industry in which labour productivity was slow to improve. We conclude with a number of policy recommendations.     

Winners and losers in tolled motorway renegotiations: an empirical evaluation of the Spanish pioneers

This paper evaluates the welfare impact of a tolled motorway contract renegotiation in Spain. The results show that, after renegotiation, both taxpayers and the private concessionaire were better off. However, road users lost out. An agreement leaving road users unaffected, while securing gains for taxpayers and the concessionaire, would have been possible by negotiating a larger reduction in tolls linked to the extension of the contract duration.