The International Transport ForumThe International Transport Forum is an intergovernmental organisation with 57 member countries.
It acts as a think tank for transport policy and organises the Annual Summit of transport ministers. ITF is
the only global body that covers all transport modes. The ITF is politically autonomous andadministratively integrated with the OECD.
The ITF works for transport policies that improve peoples’ lives. Our mission is to foster a deeper
understanding of the role of transport in economic growth, environmental sustainability and social
inclusion and to raise the public profile of transport policy.
The ITF organises global dialogue for better transport. We act as a platform for discussion and prenegotiation of policy issues across all transport modes. We analyse trends, share knowledge and promoteexchange among transport decision-makers and civil society. The ITF’s Annual Summit is the world’s
largest gathering of transport ministers and the leading global platform for dialogue on transport policy.
The Members of the ITF are: Albania, Armenia, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China (People’s Republic of), Croatia,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States.
International Transport Forum2, rue André Pascal
F-75775 Paris Cedex 16
contact@itf-oecd.org
www.itf-oecd.org

Working Document
Any findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the views of the International Transport Forum or the OECD. Neither the OECD, ITF
nor the authors guarantee the accuracy of any data or other information contained in this publication andaccept no responsibility whatsoever for any consequence of their use. This document and any map
included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitationof international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area.

ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT – 3

About this document
This paper was prepared by Sandra Vieira Gomes, Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil. It wasreviewed by Fred Wegman (University of Delft, the Netherlands), Chairman of the IRTAD Group, as
well as Shalom Hakkert (Technion University, Israel), Alberto Escobar (Automobile Club, Chile) andElke Hermans (University of Hasselt, Belgium).

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS – 5

Table of contents
Methodology for benchmarking road safety in Latin America................................................................. 7
Background and objectives of the project .................................................................................................... 7
Methodological approach............................................................................................................................. 7
Literature review .......................................................................................................................................... 9International benchmarking of road safety: State of the art ....................................................................... 12
Methodology to assess road safety performance in a selection of Latin America countries ..................... 13
Data analysis: Overview ............................................................................................................................ 14
Detailed description of the data and information ....................................................................................... 15
Next steps................................................................................................................................................... 19
References .................................................................................................................................................... 21
Annex 1. Country grouping analysis ........................................................................................................ 23
Population density...................................................................................................................................... 23Road network length .................................................................................................................................. 24
Motorisation rate ........................................................................................................................................ 24
Mortality rates ............................................................................................................................................ 27
Conclusions................................................................................................................................................ 29
Annex 2. Conclusions and recommendations of the SUNflower+6 Projects ......................................... 31
SUNflower Project ..................................................................................................................................... 31
SUNflower+6 Project ................................................................................................................................ 32

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 7

Methodology for benchmarking road safety in Latin America
Background and objectives of the projectIn 2014, the International Transport Forum (ITF) at the OECD and the Fédération Internationale del’Automobile (FIA) signed a three-year co-operation agreement focusing on the improvement ofworldwide traffic crash data collection and analysis. One of the projects jointly selected for
implementation is the “Benchmarking of road safety performance in Latin American countries”.
Countries may learn to improve road safety from their own experiences and analyses, but also fromsystematic comparison with other countries of both their safety performance and their safety
interventions and policies. Benchmarking can be defined as a systematic process of searching for bestpractices, innovative ideas and highly effective operating procedures that lead to superior performance(Hammer and Stranton, 1995). Country benchmarking is a useful tool, used in many regions in many
areas, to compare countries and learn from each other.
The objective of this project is to develop a methodology to assess road safety performance in a
selection of Latin American countries and benchmark their performance against a set of indicators andbest practices. The expected outcome is to offer policy makers in Latin America a tool to assess the
weaknesses and strengths of each country and to identify areas deserving policy attention, where theexperience of other countries may be usefully applied. The results from this benchmarking analysis will
be useful to policy makers and researchers in better understanding road safety, and in learning from eachother in order to design effective road safety policies.
This work inspires from the SUNflower1 project which was conducted in Europe (Koornstra et al.,2002). Following the presentation of the project to OISEVI General Assembly in April 2015, ten
countries expressed interest in participating in the project: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay.
The project is implemented in five stages:
1.

Development of a methodology – theoretical framework (November – June 2015)

2.

Workshop with data experts from Latin America (July 2015)

3.

Collection of data and information (November 2015 – January 2016)

4.

Benchmarking analysis (February – April 2016)

5.

Final Seminar with data experts and decision-makers (spring – summer 2016).

Methodological approach
The purpose of this paper is to describe the theoretical methodology to benchmark road safety
performance in a selection of Latin American countries. The methodological approach is based on theroad safety target hierarchy (see Figure 1) used in the SUNflower project (Koornstra et al., 2002). In this,METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

8 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA

it is essential to have a clear understanding of traffic safety processes at different levels in the hierarchy,
as well as the causes and consequences that lead to casualties and costs for society (Wegman and Oppe,2010). The “structure and culture” layer captures country-specific characteristics relevant for road safety.
The “structure” is related to the organisation of the policy context (who legislates, who deals with
operational issues, etc.), and the “culture” relates to the societal perception of road safety problems andthe respective responsibilities of individuals and the government. The next layer concerns safetymeasures and programmes (as road safety policy performance), followed by the layer of safety
performance indicators (as intermediate outcomes). Nearing the top of the hierarchy is the layer of
numbers of accident fatalities and injuries (as final outcomes), with the layer of social costs of accidents
and injuries being at the very top.
Figure 1. A target hierarchy for road safety

Source: Koornstra et al., 2002.

The methodological approach includes the development of a set of indicators, adapted to the roadsafety situation in Latin America. This includes final outcome indicators (for different road user groups,
types of roads) and intermediate outcome indicators or safety performance indicators. The approach also
includes the identification of road safety management practices in key road safety areas, as a basis forsafety interventions benchmarking.
This project on road safety benchmarking in Latin American countries analyses information from alllayers of the pyramid, as well as the relationships between them. This approach is in accordance with thethree levels of road safety issues mentioned by Kare Rumar (Rumar, 2000). The first level issues are
related to the way crash and injury statistics are analysed, collected and organised, which varies fromcountry to country. Referring to the target hierarchy proposed in the SUNflower project (Figure 1), theseissues can be seen as final outcome indicators.
The second level issues are revealed by a deeper analysis of the first level issues, for instanceunclear road traffic rules, inefficient enforcement of license requirements and traffic rules, insufficient
control of road condition from the safety point of view, and risk indicators for crashes and casualties ‒per inhabitant or vehicle number ‒ amongst others. Referring to the target hierarchy of the SUNflower
project (Figure 1), they correspond to intermediate outcomes as well as safety measures andprogrammes.
METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 9

The third level issues are less visible. They are related to the underlying processes or conditions of
the traffic situation, namely the organisation and management of road safety work ‒ such as central or
distributed responsibilities ‒ or the values and knowledge of road safety measures that the citizens in asociety may have. These issues correspond to the safety measures and programme level and the structure
and culture level from the SUNflower project.

Literature review
It is well recognised, whatever the policy sector under review, that there are many lessons to begained from the analysis of a country’s performance and policy in relation to practices in other countries
from the same region, or at the same level of development.
This type of analysis is called “benchmarking”. It consists of a systematic process of searching forbest practices, innovative ideas and highly effective operating procedures that lead to superior
performance (Hammer et al., 1995). Benchmarking is a tool to learn from the performances of others “inthe same class”.
Different types of benchmarking can be distinguished (Shen et al., 2015). One example is productbenchmarking, which compares road safety final outcomes, such as road traffic fatalities and injuries andmortality rates (ITF, 2013; OECD and ECMT Transport Research Centre, 2006). Programmebenchmarking, on the other hand, compares activities related to human–vehicle–infrastructure
performance, such as drink driving, seat belt wearing, vehicle and road safety ratings, and corresponding
policy action. This approach has been frequently used in current road safety studies since these activities
are causally related to crashes or injuries and can provide a better understanding of the process that leads
to crashes (ITF, 2013; OECD and ECMT Transport Research Centre, 2006).
Strategic and organisational benchmarking compares national road safety strategies, resources,
management and organisational framework. However, due to the lack of appropriate indicators
characterising their features, only some initial attempts have been carried out to date, such as Al-Haji(2007), Wegman et al. (2008), and Eksler et al. (2009).
Integrated benchmarking requires the development of a road safety index, which combines
individual indicator values into one single score (composite indicator). This type of benchmarking isparticularly useful for international comparisons, when a number of indicators are already available.
Regular comparisons per indicator may only give a simplified vision of the road safety situation, and canbe misleading, since different countries may operate in different circumstances. The use of a composite
road safety indicator (or index) allows to achieve a meaningful benchmarking (Wegman et al., 2008).
Various types of road safety benchmarking have been undertaken in several countries (mainly inEurope). The sections below provide a summary of the most important road safety benchmarking
projects and provides a literature review of the published results.
SUNflower Project
The first SUNflower project (Koornstra et al., 2002) compared road safety performances,programmes and policies in Sweden, United Kingdom and The Netherlands. The objectives were to
identify key factors that contributed to road safety improvements in these countries, and how these could
be used in other countries to further improve their performance. The three countries were chosenbecause, although being considerably different, they present very similar and good safety records. They
had all implemented, in the preceding decades, targeted and well-planned road safety programmes, andtheir policies had similar objectives. However they differed in their implementation in several aspects.
METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

10 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA

The main goal of the project was to better understand the relationship between the developments ofroad risks (through the reduction of the number of deaths and serious injuries) and the road safety
policies, programmes, and measures effectively implemented in Sweden, United Kingdom and The
Netherlands. Road safety was described as a pyramid consisting of several layers (as shown in Figure 1).
The analysis focused on assessing the effectiveness of the main road safety measures implemented
in each country and identifying the most effective ones. The analysis then assessed the potential benefits
for each of the three countries of a full implementation of these measures; areas where the countries
could further progress were thus identified. Furthermore, the analysis focuses on national road safety
strategies and fatality risks of comparable road types, road user modes and collisions between modes.
The analysis also included four case study subjects: drinking and driving; seat belt and child restraintuse; local infrastructural improvements on urban and minor rural roads; and safety on main inter-urban
roads. The project examined changes in overall national risk and several, more specific risk trends
between 1980 and 2000. Based on these analyses, the fatality reductions between 1980 and 2000 were
attributed to road safety measures and discussed in the context of the targeted fatality reductions up to
2010.
The main conclusions were:

All three countries achieved similar levels of safety through continued planned improvements.



Policy areas targeted in these countries were similar, but policies implemented differed at a
detailed level.

Differences in focus for safety programmes result from both different relative sizes of accidentgroups, and differences in the structure of road safety capability which influences their ability
to deliver different types of policy.

Progress was achieved through directing improved policies to all three areas: vehicle, road androad users.

Specific recommendations and conclusions with respect to differences between the SUN countries
are presented in Annex 2.
SUNflower+6 Project
In a second study, SUNflower+6, a similar method was applied to analyse the road safety
performance of nine countries (Eksler et al., 2005; Hayes et al., 2005; Lynam et al., 2005; Morsink et al.,2005; Wegman et al., 2005). To facilitate the benchmarking exercise, countries were classified in threegroups with similar road traffic patterns:


The SUN countries: Sweden, United Kingdom and The Netherlands.

Southern European countries: Greece, Portugal, Spain and the Autonomic Community of
Catalonia.

Central European countries: Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary.

According to the specificity of each group, practical recommendations were proposed for their mostproblematic areas like vulnerable roads users, enforcement, legal system or speeding, amongst others.
Important differences were found between the Northern Europe and Southern Europe. The specificrecommendations and conclusions for each group and country are presented in Annex 2.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 11

SUNflowerNext
The SUNflowerNext study (Wegman et al., 2008) focused on 27 countries. The objectives were to
identify the best performing countries, understand why they were performing better than other countries,
and analyse how outstanding practices from the countries which perform “best-in-class” could be
adapted to other countries (Gitelman, Doveh, and Hakkert, 2010; Wegman et al., 2008).
Different ways for creating a composite road safety index and evaluating the robustness of the basic
indicators involved were explored. The road safety performance indicator (RSI) combined three types of
performance indicators (see Figure 1): road safety performance indicators, implementation performanceindicators and policy performance indicators.
A composite road safety index combining these indicators was developed. Two weighting
procedures (principal component analysis2 and factor analysis3) were examined, based on the datacollected for 27 European countries (see also Papadimitriou et al., 2013). This allowed ranking andgrouping the countries according to their safety performance.
The performed analysis revealed that the country rankings ‒ based on the combination of indicators‒ was different from the traditional ranking of countries ‒ based on mortality rates or fatality rates only.
The inclusion of information on policy performance and implementation performance to the ranking andgrouping process improved the results and made them more meaningful. It gave a more complete pictureof road safety than a ranking based only on fatality rates, which is currently the most common practice.
DaCoTa project
The DaCoTa project was a follow-up of the SafetyNet and the SUNflower related projects, which
had developed the pyramid structure and the concept of road safety performance indicators, and first
calculations were made. The Dacota project had the following four aims:


investigate whether indicators for road safety management can be used in the Road Safety
Index



extend the work on indicators for structural and cultural differences among countriesaggregate the indicators into one single score per layer of the pyramid

investigate whether further integrating the four layers into one single score for the composite
index as a whole would provide any added value.

The DaCoTa project aimed at delivering an instrument to facilitate the comparisons of the overallroad safety situation between countries (Bax et al., 2012). This instrument results from the combinationof indicators called the overall Road Safety Index (RSI) of a country, which describes the road safety
outcomes and the road safety policy performance. These performance indicators were compared at threedifferent levels (see Figure 2): final outcomes (injuries and crashes), intermediate outcomes (safety
performance indicators such as drink driving, speeding, car safety) and policy output (safety measuresand programmes).
A method to combine the indicators of final outcomes, intermediate outcomes and policy output
layers into one single composite index was developed. The authors calculated the composite index foreach layer and then investigated the value of combining the composite layer-indices in one overall Road
Safety Index. This was done using weighting procedures in order to deduce a weight for each indicator

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

12 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA

and to compute an index score for each country subsequently. However, different weighting procedures
have their own advantages and limitations, and imply different end results.
Ideally, an overall Road Safety Composite Index would provide an unambiguous ranking of all
countries, taking into account all indicators of safety outcomes. However specific theoretical andpractical problems on the weighting of layer-indexes were encountered, which required further research.

International benchmarking of road safety: State of the art
Countries within the same region, or that have already passed through similar stages of challenges
and development, usually have several common problems that can be identified in close co-operationand improvements can be expected by learning lessons from existing best practices in other countries(even if the final solutions or priorities may differ from one country to another, in accordance with theirown safety characteristics) (Shen et al., 2015).
Shen et al. (2015) presented a road safety benchmarking cycle, adapted from Wegman et al. (2008),
with five core activities (see Figure 2):determine the key components for road safety benchmarking

identify the benchmarking partners (or countries)

construct indicators for meaningful comparisons and data gathering

examine gaps in performance and their root causes

set targets (on final and intermediate outcomes) and monitoring progress.

The development of a road safety index, along with some theoretical and practical issues on thissubject, was discussed. Shen et al. also refer to the work of Al-Haji (2007) and Hermans et al. (2008).
Al-Haji proposed a road safety development index (RSDI), considering three main areas: fatality rates,
road user behaviour and system components (safer vehicles, safer roads, socio-economic level,
enforcement, and organisational performance). For this purpose, four weighting procedures were used:equal weighting, expert judgments, subjective weights based on previous experience and principal
component analysis.
Hermans et al. (2008) proposed a road safety performance index for cross-country comparison. One
safety performance indicator was defined for each one of the six risk factors: alcohol and drugs, speeds,
protective systems, vehicles, roads, and trauma management. Five weighting procedures were
investigated to combine the separate indicators into one overall index: factor analysis, budget allocation,
analytic hierarchy process, data envelopment analysis, and equal weighting. The results were thencompared with the number of fatalities per million inhabitants. The data envelopment analysis method
was considered the best approach to the road safety ranking.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 13

Figure 2. The road safety benchmarking cycle

Source: Shen et al., 2015; Wegman et al., 2008.

Methodology to assess road safety performance in a selection of Latin America countries
For this project, the purpose is to compare ‒ for different countries in Latin America ‒ crash trends
and characteristics, road safety strategies, policies, and measures that have been implemented, and toanalyse which have been the most effective in reducing traffic casualties, and under which specificconditions. The results will form a starting point for participating countries to learn from each other. The
comparison will identify similarities and differences between countries, in particular regarding factors,
circumstances and developments that have influenced crash risk and the severity of their outcome. Morespecifically, the work will encompass the following tasks:Define indicators and collect the data required to analyse the specific case studies and overall
policy.

Provide insights concerning the quality of different data sources for comparing road safety
policies and actions.



Identify the strengths and weaknesses of each country or region through comparative
benchmarking (data availability and quality).



Develop a scientifically-based understanding of differences between benchmark values.



Draw conclusions on effective interventions and measures and success factors in different
areas, and propose how these could be applied in other countries participating in this project toimprove their road safety performance.

To undertake this analysis, it is proposed to collect and analyse data and information in thefollowing areas (see Annex I for more details):road safety policy and organisation

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

14 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA

general data on the road transport systemroad crashes and casualty data, and traffic and road safety trendscase studies on key road safety areas.

In order to improve the benchmarking analysis, it is proposed to group the countries that present
similarities on key indicators (see section on Country grouping). However, as data availability is not yet
fully known, it was agreed that the final grouping, if needed, will be made at a later stage after apreliminary analysis has been made.

Data analysis: Overview
An initial task is to describe and analyse current road safety strategies, including key interventions
and main stakeholders. Data and information will also be collected to describe the road transport system.
This will include: population data, country area, road length, registered motorised vehicles, annual
distances travelled by vehicles and passengers and fuel sales for motorised vehicles.
Safety data and case studies
Trends in fatal injuries and crashes will be analysed to explain differences identified by the
benchmarking. This will allow to relate the outputs with the key measures implemented by each country
and to identify the effects (positive or negative) of these measures. To identify major road safety issues
in Latin America, the project will encompass the analysis of case studies among the following topics:
pedestrians; powered two-wheelers; drink and driving; speed; seat belts and child restraint use; young
drivers; road infrastructure; vehicle safety; and trauma management. The final selection of case studies
will be made based on country interest and data availability. Case studies will only be undertaken whenat least three countries have good quality data to provide.
Data availability and limitation
During a workshop held in July 2015 with data experts from participating countries, the availabilityof data was discussed ‒ in particular regarding information on slightly and severely injured victims.
Some countries do not make a distinction between slight and serious injury; and underreporting of injury
data was also mentioned. As a result, it was decided to limit the benchmarking analysis to fatalities andfatal crashes ‒ disaggregated by road user type, age group, location and involved vehicles. Data will becollected up to the year 2013. The analysis may be updated with 2014 data at a later stage.
Concerning time trends, each country will decide on the most appropriate time period – based ondata availability and comprehensiveness ‒ taking into account that the preferred option would be to havea long timeframe, with data collected in a consistent way. Depending on the data availability, thedevelopment of a composite index similar to the ones proposed in SUNflowerNext and DaCoTa projects
might be considered. The feasibility of this approach will be decided on after the data collection.
In the case that a complete set of data will not be available in the participating countries, data could
be collected at regional or municipal level, and a benchmarking analysis for three to four selected cities
or provinces may be undertaken. Nevertheless, during the workshop held in July 2015, experts indicatedthey had enough data to participate at the national level, so neither the regional nor municipal analysis
was considered.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 15

Detailed description of the data and information
Road safety policy and organisation
main road safety policies, plans and road network improvement programmes

institutional issues, organisation of roads safety

selected key road safety legislation (e.g. speed limits, maximum authorised level of blood
alcohol content [BAC], seatbelt laws, etc.).

General data describing the road transport systempopulation: age distribution, geographical (urban/rural) distributiondriver licencing schemes: types, age limitsarea (km2), road length (km) by type of road (urban roads, rural roads, motorways)

registered motorised vehicles by type: passenger cars, heavy good vehicles (≥ 3.5 tonnes),
SUVs and light good vehicles (< 3.5 tonnes), powered two-wheelers (motorcycles andmopeds), coaches/buses, other motor vehicles, bicycles

vehicle-kilometres (by type of vehicles) and passenger–kilometres (public transport,pedestrians).

Data on fatal road crashes
overall number of fatalities

number of fatalities by user type (car occupants, light-duty vehicle occupants, heavy-duty
vehicle occupants, bus occupants, powered two-wheeler users, cyclists, pedestrians, other road
users)

fatalities distribution by age group and road transport mode (passenger cars, heavy-duty
vehicles, light-duty vehicles, buses, cyclists, powered two-wheelers, pedestrians, others)

number of fatalities resulting from collisions, by type of user (driver, car occupant, lorryoccupant, bus occupant, motorcyclist, mopedist, cyclist, pedestrian, other road users) and insingle crashes or in collisions with different types of vehicles (passenger car, lorry, bus,
motorcycle, moped/cycle, animals, train/tram, other)

crash data by location (type of road, urban roads/ rural roads)underreporting of road crashes and of road fatalities.

Case studies
Pedestrian

number of pedestrian deaths in collisions with passenger cars, heavy-duty vehicles, light-duty
vehicles, buses, powered two-wheelers, tram, trains and other type of vehicles

age distribution of pedestrian fatalities

trends in pedestrian fatality rates

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

16 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA



geographic distribution of pedestrian fatal crashes (urban areas/rural areas)pedestrian fatalities per month, per day of week and by time of day

Powered two-wheelers (PTW)

number of PTW fatalities by type of accident and trends over time

age distribution of PTW fatalities

geographic distribution of PTW fatal crashes (urban areas/rural areas)

PTW drivers and passengers killed, with and without helmet.

Drink and driving


number of screening tests per year, per vehicle carnumber of drink and drive infringementsscreening tests positive in fatal and injury crashes



number of fatal crashes with driver over the legal alcohol limit

number of screening tests on drivers involved in fatal crashes



number of screening tests performed per accident.

Speed


speed limits per road type, vehicle class, and sanction regimemean speed per road type

number of speed limits infringements on different types of roadsnumber of crashes and casualties due to excessive speed on different types of roads.

Seat belts and child restraint systemsseat belt use among drivers and passengers (front seat, back seat) for different road types

seat belt use and child restraint systems (CRS) infringementsseat belt use and CRS among fatal crashes (by age)

Young drivers

number of drivers involved in fatal crashes by driving license holdersʼ age

number of loss-of-control crashes by age group

number of new drivers (male/female)number of car drivers involved in fatal crashes by age group

number of weekend night crashes by age group

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 17

Infrastructure safety data from International Road Assessment Programme
Data on infrastructure safety will be collected through the International Road Assessment Programme(IRAP). Star Rating of roads by road user group involves the proportion of roads classified as 1, 2, 3, 4
or 5 stars for different road users (where traffic volumes > 5 000 a day).
Road characteristics and adaptability to road users include:

roads where pedestrians are present and speed flows at 40km/h or more and which have nofootpathroads where bicyclists are present and traffic flows at 40km/h or more that have no bicycle
facilities

roads with high motorcycle flows (>=20% of total) and traffic flows at 60km/h or more thathave no motorcycle facilities

roads carrying traffic at 80km/h or more that are undivided single carriageways

curves where traffic flows at 80km/h or more that have hazardous roadsides

intersections where traffic flows at 60km/h or more that have no roundabout, protected turnlane or interchange.

Post traumanumber of evacuations to trauma centre by type (self, regular ambulance, mobile intensive careunit, helicopter)

average time for arrival at scene, treatment in the field and arrival for definitive treatment in
hospital

total length (in days) of hospitalisation

number of Emergency Medical Stations (absolute number and per population)

number of trauma beds in permanent medical facilities (absolute number and per population)

length of hospitalisation in intensive care unitsnumber of Emergency Medical Station’s vehicles (absolute number and per population).

Vehicles

total number of vehicles listed by year of manufacture (or year of first registration)time series for the number of registered vehicles.

Country grouping
At the time of the development of this methodology, ten countries expressed interest in participatingin the project: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay and
Uruguay. As mentioned earlier, a meaningful benchmarking analysis requires comparing subjects thatare comparable. In this respect it was considered useful to distinguish two groups of countries based on
their motorisation, geographical position, population patterns and other characteristics.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

18 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA

It is expected that country grouping will increase the degree of “natural association” among
members of the same group, and help to distinguish members from different groups (Anderberg, 1973),
thus offering a more feasible basis for the safety performance comparisons and the transference of
successful experiences. An initial “grouping” analysis was undertaken, taking into account the following
factors:

population density

share of the population in urban and rural areasmotorisation rateroad fatality rate.

Details of this analysis are presented in Annex 1. The results of this exercise allowed to groupcountries sharing similar characteristics (see Table 1).
Table 1. Grouping assessment for benchmarking road safety

Based onGroup 1

Group 2

Population density

Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba,
Ecuador, Mexico

Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Paraguay, Uruguay

Geographical repartition of
the population(urban / rural areas)

Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba,
Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay

Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Uruguay

Level of motorisation

Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Cuba, Ecuador, Paraguay

Argentina, Brazil, Mexico,
UruguayMortality rate in relation to
motorisation rate

Paraguay, Ecuador

Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba,
Mexico, Uruguay

From these sets it is problematic to select two main groups, as similarities are not homogeneous.
Nevertheless, it is possible to confirm that Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay are always together
irrespective of the selected factor. In the same group it is possible to include Chile, (sharing similarities
under three factors), and Mexico (sharing similarities under two factors).
Accordingly, the following country grouping is proposed (see also Figure 3):Group 1: Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, and ParaguayGroup 2: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay.

The final grouping may evolve based on data availability, and will be decided once a preliminary
analysis has been made.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA – 19

Figure 3. Country grouping proposal

Next steps
The methodology described in this paper was adjusted with ITF and OISEVI, based on data andinformation available and on the outcome of the workshop that was held with experts from theparticipating countries in July 2015. At this workshop, a survey was undertaken to have an initial
indication of the types of data and information available.
The data to be collected was organised in a template that was sent to the countriesʼ representatives.
This data collection is expected to be completed by mid-January 2016, following which thebenchmarking analysis will be undertaken.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

20 – METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA

Notes
1.

The SUNFLOWER project was originally developed to assess road safety in Sweden, United Kingdom andthe Netherlands (SUN-countries), and thereafter was extended and applied to nine countries.

2.

Principal component analysis (PCA) is a statistical procedure that uses an orthogonal transformation toconvert a set of observations of possibly correlated variables into a set of values of linearly uncorrelated
variables called principal components.

3.

Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables interms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

REFERENCES – 21

References
Al-Haji, G. (2007), Road Safety Development Index (RSDI): Theory, Philosophy and Practice,
Linköping University.
Anderberg, M.R. (1973), Cluster Analysis for Applications, New York: Academic Press.
Bax, C., P. Wesemann, V. Gitelman, Y. Shen, C. Goldenbeld, E. Hermans and L. Aarts (2012),
Developing a Road Safety Index. Deliverable 4.9 of the EC FP7 project DaCoTA.
Eksler, V., J Heinrich, J. Gyurmati, P. Hollo, B. Bensa, N. Bolko and D. Krivek (2005), SUNflower+6.
A comparative study of the development of road safety in the Czech Republic, Slovenia andHungary. CDV.
GADM (2015), GADM database of Global Administrative Areas, Digital Chart of the World. www.divagis.org/ (accessed 1 January 2015).
Gitelman, V., E. Doveh and S. Hakkert (2010), "Designing a Composite Indicator for Road Safety".
Safety Science, Vol. 48/9, pp. 1212–1224, DOI:10.1016/j.ssci.2010.01.011.
Hammer, M. and S. Stranton (1995), The Reengineering Revolution: A Handbook. HarperCollins, NewYork.
Hayes, S., S. Serrano, L. Giralt, P. Zori, Y. Handanos, C. Lymperi and S. Vieira Gomes (2005),
SUNflower+6. A Comparative Study of the Development of Road Safety in Greece, Portugal,
Spain and Catalonia, (DSD, Ed.). Barcelona.
Hermans, E., F. Van den Bossche and G. Wets (2008), "Combining Road Safety Information in a
Performance Index". Accident, Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 40/4, pp. 1337–44,
DOI:10.1016/j.aap.2008.02.004.
Index Mundi (2015), Index Mundi, www.indexmundi.com/(accessed 20 January 2015).
ITF (2013), Road Safety Annual Report 2013, OECD Publishing, Paris.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/irtad-2013-en
Koornstra, M., D. Lynam, G. Nilsson, P. Noordzij, H-E. Pettersson, F.Wegman and P. Wouters (2002),
SUNflower: A comparative study of the development of road safety in Sweden, the United
Kingdom, and the Netherlands. www.swov.nl/rapport/sunflower/sunflower.pdf.
Lynam, D., G. Nilsson, P. Morsink, B. Sexton, D. Twisk, C. Goldenbeld and F. Wegman (2005),
SUNflower + 6 An extended study of the development of road safety in Sweden, the United
Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
Morsink, P., S. Oppe, M. Reurings and F.Wegman (2005), Development and application of a footprint
methodology for the SUNflower+6 countries. Leidschendam: SWOV.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

22 – REFERENCES

OECD and ECMT Transport Research Center (2006), Country Reports on Road Safety Performance,(September).
Papadimitriou, E., G. Yannis, F. Bijleveld and J. L.Cardoso (2013), “Exposure Data and Risk Indicators
for Safety Performance Assessment in Europe”. Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 60, pp.
371–83. DOI:10.1016/j.aap.2013.04.040.
Rumar, K. (2000), “Transport Safety Visions, Targets and Strategies: Beyond 2000”, European
Transport Safety Council ETSC, Brussels (January 1999).
Shen, Y., E. Hermans, Q. Bao, T. Brijs, G.Wets and W. Wang (2015), “International Benchmarking ofRoad Safety: State of the art”, Transportation Research Part C, Vol. 50, pp. 37–50,
DOI:10.1016/j.trc.2014.07.006.
Wegman, F., J. Commandeur, E. Doveh, V. Eksler, V. Gitelman, S. Hakkert and S. Oppe (2008),
SUNflowerNext: Towards a Composite Road Safety Performance Index, Deliverable D6.16 of the
EU FP6 project SafetyNet.
Wegman, F., V. Eksler, S. Hayes, D. Lynam, P. Morsink and S. Oppe (2005), A comparative study of thedevelopment of road safety in the SUNflower+6 countries, Final Report, Leidschendam: SWOV.
Wegman, F. and S. Oppe (2010), “Benchmarking road safety performances of countries”, Safety Science,Vol. 48/9, pp. 1203–1211, DOI:10.1016/j.ssci.2010.02.003.
World Health Organization (2013), Global Status Report on Road Safety, Vol. 1, p. 318.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS – 23

Annex 1. Country grouping analysis
A grouping analysis was made based on the following information for each country: population
density, road length, motorisation and mortality rates (GADM, 2015; Index Mundi, 2015; World HealthOrganization, 2013).

Population density
Population density shows a great disparity and varies between 7.0 inhabitants/km² in Paraguay, to104.5 in Cuba (see Table A1).
Two groups of countries can be distinguished:Group 1: Population density above 40 inhabitant/km²: Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia,
Ecuador.

Group 2: Population density below 25 inhabitants/km²: Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina,
Paraguay.
Table A1. Population density
Population (2010)

Area (km2)

Density (hab/km2)

Argentina

40 412 376

2 780 400

14.5

Brazil

194 946 488

8 515 767

22.9

Chile

17 113 688

756 950

22.6

Colombia

46 294 842

1 138 914

40.6

Costa Rica

4 658 887

51 60890.3

Cuba

11 477 460

109 884104.5

Ecuador

14 464 739

256 932

56.3

Mexico113 423 052

1 958 201

57.9

Paraguay

6 454 548

919 247

7.0

Uruguay

3 368 786

178 14118.9

Country

Urban and rural population
Figure A1 shows the percentage of urban and rural population. All countries present a higher
percentage of urban population; however, there are wide variations in the percentage of rural population,with several countries having more than a quarter of their population living in rural areas, including:Paraguay (39%), Costa Rica (36%), Ecuador (33%), Colombia (25%), Cuba (25%) and Mexico (22%).
Conversely, the following four countries have lower percentages of rural population: Uruguay (8%),
Argentina (8%), Chile (11%) and Brazil (16%). Based on this indicator, we can distinguish two groups ofcountries:

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

24 – ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSISGroup 1 (more than 25% of the population live in rural areas): Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba,
Ecuador, Mexico, and ParaguayGroup 2 (less than 20% of the population live in rural areas): Argentina, Brazil, Chile, andUruguay.
Figure A1. Distribution of urban and rural population
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%

Urban

30%

Rural

20%
10%
0%

Road network length
Although indirectly, road network length can be related to road casualties as an exposure factor.
Figure A2 presents the main road network length. Brazil has the largest, at 317 925 km, followed by
Mexico (226 933 km) and Argentina (197 994 km). At a lower level, one can find the other countries:
Colombia (51 780 km), Chile (46 518 km), Paraguay (21 198 km), Cuba (18 101 km), Uruguay(13 554 km), Ecuador (10 935 km) and finally Costa Rica (5 160 km).
Group 1: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Paraguay and UruguayGroup 2: Brazil, Mexico, Argentina.

Motorisation rate
Figure A3 presents the number of motorised vehicles in 2010. Brazil is by far the country with thehighest number of motorised vehicles. However, when normalised by the number of inhabitants, themotorisation rate is higher in Uruguay (390 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants) followed by Argentina(350 vehicles/1 000
inhabitants),
Brazil(330
vehicles/1 000
inhabitants),
Mexico(270 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants), Chile and Costa Rica (200 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants), Colombia(160 vehicles/1 000
inhabitant),
Paraguay(140
vehicles/1 000
inhabitants),
Ecuador(80 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants) and finally Cuba (50 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants).
Group 1: Motorisation of 200 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants or below: Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia,
Paraguay, Ecuador, and Cuba.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS – 25

Group 2: Motorisation rate above 250 vehicles/1 000 inhabitants: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, andUruguay.
Figure A2. Main road network length (2010)
350 000

Road length (km)300 000
250 000
200 000
150 000
100 000
50 0000

Source: Index Mundi, 2015.

Figure A3. Number of registered motorised vehicles and motorisation rate (2010)

Source: World Health Organization, 2013.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

26 – ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS

Share of powered two-wheelers in the fleet
Figure A4 presents the number of motorised vehicles disaggregated by type in 2010. It shows that in
Colombia, Cuba and Uruguay there is very high share (see Figure A3 above) of motorised 2- and 3wheelers.
Figure A4. Share of the vehicle fleet by type of vehicle (2010)

Source: World Health Organization, 2013.

Based on this indicator, one can identify the following groups:
Group 1 (share of PTW above 30%): Colombia, Cuba, and Uruguay.

Group 2 (share of PTW below 30%): Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador,
Mexico, Paraguay

Motorisation rate and mortality rate
Figure A5 presents a scatter plot of the motorisation rate versus the mortality rate for the year 2010.
The countries which present a high motorisation rate and a low mortality rate have better results in termsof road safety. However, good results might also be considered if both the motorisation rate and themortality rate are low. Bad performances are associated with low motorisation rates and high mortality
rates. With these values it is possible to group Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Costa
Rica and Chile. Lower road safety levels are presented by Paraguay and Ecuador.
Group 1: countries with a low motorisation rate and a high mortality rate: Paraguay and
EcuadorMETHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS – 27

Group 2: countries with a high motorisation rate and a low mortality rate, or with a low
motorisation rate and a low mortality rate: Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica and Cuba.
Figure A5. Motorisation rate versus mortality rate (2010)

Source: World Health Organization, 2013.

Mortality rates
Other indicators may be considered in the grouping analysis, including mortality rates: road traffic
deaths rates per population, per motor vehicles and per road length (see Table A2 and Figure A6).
Regarding road traffic deaths per inhabitants, the highest rate is found in Ecuador (with23.9 deaths/100 000 inhabitants), followed by Uruguay with a similar value of
23.5 deaths/100 000 inhabitants. Lower values are found in Colombia (11.9 deaths/100 000 inhabitants)
and Cuba (7.0 deaths/100 000 inhabitants).
This indicator, however, is not sufficient to assess the safety level of a country as it takes into
account neither the motorisation rate nor the traffic volume. Nevertheless, it is a useful indicator toconsider road safety from a health perspective.
Regarding the number of road traffic deaths per 10 000 motorised vehicles, the higher value wasfound in Ecuador, with 31 deaths/10 000 vehicles. Cuba and Paraguay follow, with 13.3 and13.1 deaths/10 000 vehicles, respectively. The lower values were found in Uruguay and Argentina, with
4.3 and 3.6 deaths/10 000 vehicles respectively.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

28 – ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS

As for the number of road traffic deaths per 100 kilometres of road length, the highest value waspresented by Ecuador, with 29.5 deaths/100 kilometres. Costa Rica, Brazil and Colombia follow, with
13.6, 11.5 and 10.6 deaths/100 kilometres respectively. The lower values are presented by Uruguay(4.1 deaths/100 kilometres) and Argentina (2.6 deaths/100 kilometres).
Table A2. Road traffic deaths rates per population, per motor vehicles and per road length (2010)
CountryRoad
traffic
deathsPopulation

MotorvehiclesRoad length/kmRoad traffic
deaths/100 000
inhabitants

Argentina

5 094

40 412 376

14 163 125

197 994

12.6

3.6

2.6

Brazil

36 499194 946 488

64 817 974

317 925

18.7

5.6

11.5

Chile

2 071

17 113 688

3 375 523

46 518

12.1

6.1

4.5

Colombia

5 502

46 294 842

7 229 373

51 780

11.9

7.6

10.6

Costa Rica

700

4 658 887

923 591

5 160

15.0

7.6

13.6

Cuba

809

10 477 460

607 675

18 101

7.7

13.3

4.5

Ecuador

3 222

1 039 364

1 039 364

10 935

23.9

31

29.5

Mexico17 30130 904 659

30 904 659

226 933

15.3

5.6

7.6

Paraguay

1 206

919 247919 247

21 198

18.7

13.1

5.7

Uruguay556

128 7012

13 55413 554

23.5

4.6

4.1

Road traffic
deaths/ 10 000
mot. vehicles

Road traffic
deaths/ 100 km
road length

Figure A6. Road traffic deaths rates per population, per motor vehicles and per road length (2010)

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS – 29

Conclusions
From the selected indicators it is not easy to identify two main groups. Nevertheless, Argentina,
Brazil and Uruguay are always in the same group irrespective of the indicator (see Table A3). In thesame group it is possible to include Chile (sharing similarities for three indicators), and Mexico (sharing
similarities for two indicators).
Table A3. Country grouping according to the selected indicators
Group 1

Group 2

Population density

Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
EcuadorMexicoGeographical distribution of population(rural / urban)

Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
EcuadorMexicoParaguay

Road network length

Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
EcuadorParaguay
Uruguay

BrazilMexicoArgentina

Motorisation

Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
EcuadorParaguay
Colombia
Cuba
UruguayArgentina
BrazilMexicoUruguay

Share of powered two-wheelers in the
fleet

Mortality rate x motorisation rate

Paraguay
EcuadorMETHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

Argentina
BrazilChile
Paraguay
UruguayArgentina
BrazilChile
UruguayArgentina
BrazilChile
Costa Rica
EcuadorMexicoParaguay
Argentina
BrazilChile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
MexicoUruguay

30 – ANNEX 1: COUNTRY GROUPING ANALYSIS

Accordingly, the following country grouping is proposed (see also Figure 3):Group 1: Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, and ParaguayGroup 2: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay

The final grouping may evolve based on data availability and will be decided once a preliminary
analysis has been made.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 2: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE SUNFLOWER+6 PROJECTS – 31

Annex 2. Conclusions and recommendations of the SUNflower+6
Projects
SUNflower ProjectSpecific recommendations and conclusions with respect to differences between the SUN countries:British risks were highest for pedestrians and for motorcyclists ‒ but lowest for car
occupants ‒ compared to the other countries. Factors, which may explain these risk
differences, include the higher traffic density on British roads, the greater use ofroundabouts at junctions, and the lower average speed on main inter-urban roads.

Car occupant risk was highest in Sweden. Factors that may explain this were the higher
Swedish average speed on main roads ‒ despite lower speed limits ‒ and the lower traffic
density and lower speed limit enforcement level.

Dutch mopedists had almost twice as high the risk of those in the other countries and theydrove more kilometres. Dutch cyclist risk was lowest, but still higher than car risk ‒ evenwhen the risk that cars inflict on other road users is included. And Dutch citizens cycle by
far the most. Factors that may explain the low cyclist risk include the presence of large
numbers of cyclists and the extensive implementation of cycle facilities.



Sweden had 14% driver fatalities over 0.1% BAC in 2000, versus an estimated 17% in the
Netherlands and a reported 20% in Britain. This may be explained by the differences in legal
blood alcohol limits, enforcement policies, and penalties for offending in the three countries.



The risk on Dutch roads other than motorways was about a third higher than the risk onthese types of roads in the other countries. Factors, which might explain this include higher
exposure and risk to mopedists, higher cyclist exposure, lower belt use, and higher junction
density.

Main recommendations for future road safety improvements in the SUN countries:

As car drivers had a higher risk in Sweden than in the other two countries; traffic safety
efforts in Sweden should concentrate on car drivers and their speed behaviour.



Britain would benefit from a lower blood alcohol limit for drinking and driving, more
intensively enforced, but with some relaxation of penalties for the new, lower limit offences.



Britain requires an infrastructure solution that enables pedestrian and motorised traffic toco-exist at lower fatality levels, for example by extending the length of urban roads with
20 mph (30 km/h) speed limits.

Britain should also give greater emphasis to developing a more extensive, high quality road
network of similar density to that in the other countries; this could encourage greater
acceptance of lower speeds on other roads.



The Netherlands needs to understand why its moped rider risk is so high in order to identify
an appropriate solution.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

32 – ANNEX 2:CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE SUNFLOWER+6 PROJECTSThe Netherlands also requires to review its drink-driving problem, to identify how best to
make further reductions in alcohol-related fatalities.



The Netherlands needs to identify an effective strategy to increase seat belt wearing rates toa similar level as the other two countries.

SUNflower+6 Project
The main conclusions and recommendations for the SUN countries were:
Sweden

Make the transport environment more forgiving, to reduce injuries when accidents occur. This
could reduce the high proportion of elderly pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, and also reduce
injuries among elderly car occupants.

Consider further efforts to improve public acceptance of enforcement initiatives, possibly
through more community partnerships. There would seem to be an opportunity to increase theuse of automatic detection, mainly of speeding offenders. But increased enforcement also needs achange in the legislative system concerning both fines and vehicle owner responsibility to be aseffective as possible.



Seek, in the longer term, to move to a lower speed limit for two-lane rural roads, and develop a
network of higher quality rural roads which can safely sustain higher speed limits.

United Kingdom
Focus more effort on seeking innovative road designs which cater to mixed vehicular andvulnerable road user activities at the higher traffic flow levels evident in Britain.

Improve facilities for cycling, especially in the context of the government’s desire to increase
cycling.

Give more attention to helping drivers recognise the presence and behaviour of motorcyclists
within the traffic flow, and give particular attention to countermeasures to reduce bend andovertaking accidents involving motorcyclists.

Ensure that the latest policy statements on enforcement promising greater visible presence areaccompanied by sufficient resources to achieve this. Ensure that senior police managers
demonstrate a genuine commitment to road safety by maintaining an appropriate level of traffic
policing.

Improve its package of drink-drive measures and particularly increase the real level of detection,
as opposed to the perceived level. The increasing number of speeding offences also suggests thatthe balance between enforcement and public awareness might be improved.



Seek, in the longer term, to move to a lower speed limit for two-lane rural roads, and develop a
network of higher quality rural roads which can safely sustain higher speed limits; through thisapproach there should be clearer separation in Britain between the road standards (and speed
limit bands) in the rural network.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 2:CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE SUNFLOWER+6 PROJECTS – 33

The NetherlandsContinue to increase the share of 30 km/h roads in urban areas, and make pedestrian crossing
design more consistent with road categories.



Seek measures to reduce the high proportion of pedestrian fatalities involving mopeds.

Continue to provide for physical separation of cyclists and motorised traffic on main roads, andtraffic calming measures at intersections.



Increase the training required by moped riders aged 16-17 before access to the road, increase(correct) helmet wearing rates, and introduce a more structured licensing system and vehicle
registration plates to help enforcement of the behaviour of this group, especially as regards
speeding.



Seek ways of increasing the experience gained by young drivers before they take the driving test,
including considering accompanied driving before the driving test.



Seek ways to make the road environment assist in complying with relevant speed limits and, inparticular, investigate the situation on 80 km/h roads which have a high fatality risk.

Consider if the very high level of speeding offences suggests that a different approach tomodifying speeding behaviour might be needed. Greater focus on enforcement of repeat, or
extreme, offenders should be considered.

The main conclusions and recommendations for the Southern European countries were:
Greece

Improving driver compliance with the existing seat belt law.



Seek ways to improve pedestrian safety with new measures, such as artificial lighting or
improvement of pedestrian visibility.



Increase the level of helmet usage (both motorcycles and mopeds) by better police enforcement
and increased sanctions.

PortugalImprove the use of seat belt wearing in rear seat occupants.



Seek ways to facilitate safe pedestrian movements on both urban and rural roads passing throughtowns, with elderly people at night as the design criteria.

Consider re-training courses and/or enforcement of helmet usage to reduce the proportion ofelderly mopedist fatalities.

Portuguese PTW users need improved training or the introduction of a points-based driving
licence that can curb reckless driving.

Spain


Improve the alcohol controls carried out at accidents.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

34 – ANNEX 2:CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE SUNFLOWER+6 PROJECTSStricter legal measures to be considered that include the setting of a standard BAC level of
0.2 g/l for motorcyclists; or the establishment of a common, minimum punishment of
unconditional suspension of the driving licence for six months for anyone passing the limit.



Seek measures to improve rear seat belt use.

Consider the introduction of automatic detection of speeding drivers to reduce their numbers, andto change driver behaviour, in order to lower the number of fatalities due to speeding.

Catalonia

Increase police controls in order to reduce the drink and drive problem.

Extend speed camera control to the entire road network (of locations with speed-related
accidents) to ensure a change in driver behaviour.

Improve the use of child restraint systems and rear seat belts.

The main conclusions and recommendations for the Central European countries were:
Czech Republic

Seek measures to reduce the high proportion of (elderly) pedestrians and cyclist fatalities, andincreased involvement of HGV in road accidents.

Consider more effort to improve public attitudes to enforcement possibly through more frequent
community partnerships.

Consider the application of the special regulations controlling vehicle use by novice drivers.

Consider the recent system of police enforcement: make car owners responsible for the offences
related to their vehicle, reconsider the amount of fines and make more transparent how they are
used.



Revise the methodology of road accidents reporting by the police in order to provide valuable
information for the road safety research community.



Reconsider speed management scheme, with a stronger emphasis on general deterrence andprevention; and possibly reconsider speed limits on road sections in rural areas. Give more
support to zone 30 applications.

HungaryConsider the responsibility distribution, as it is not clearly defined which of the ministries has themain responsibility for road safety.



Increase the resources for road safety improvement, as the existing budget for this purpose isinadequate.

Focus on education and training courses for drivers in regard to road safety: fundamentally, theselection of the safe speed and, in general, the strict requirement for obeying rules must assume agreater role.



Develop effective speed management.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

ANNEX 2:CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE SUNFLOWER+6 PROJECTS – 35

SloveniaConsider the establishment of a central Road (Transport) Safety Agency with proper funding(budget) to co-ordinate and manage road (transport) safety activities.



Apply legislation changes regarding driving under the influence of alcohol (introduction of zero
BAC limit) in order to influence the patterns of social behaviour related to excessive drinking in
general.



Seek measures to reduce the high proportion of young drivers involved in injury accidents,
especially those involved in weekend night accidents.

Consider effective enforcement of zero BAC and pay even more attention to education andpreventive work in the respective field.



Encourage the implementation of effective speed management.



Encourage further accelerated implementation of traffic calming schemes in built up areas.

Improve the management of the road safety performance indicators data collection system,
including regular research surveys on protective systems use, speeding and alcohol level
distribution among drivers.

METHODOLOGY FOR BENCHMARKING ROAD SAFETY IN LATIN AMERICA — © OECD/ITF 2016

International Transport Forum
2 rue André Pascal
F-75775 Paris Cedex 16
contact@itf-oecd.org
www.itf-oecd.org