Abstract: In February 2020, the “Stockholm Declaration” was announced, urging states toward 50% reduction in deaths and injuries over the next decade, leading to Vision Zero by 2050. The aim of this research is to understand how road traffic fatality patterns vary across selected developed countries and to see if they are on track to achieve the United Nation’s 2030 target. After identifying potential reasons behind the patterns, time - series model was used to identify the effect of exposure variables on traffic fatalities. To assess the likelihood of meeting the U.N. target, an ARIMA model was used for obtaining trustworthy forecasts of road traffic fatalities using data from the last five decades from seven high-income countries. Total number of fatalities, vehicle-km travelled, vehicle ownership, GDP, GDP per capita, urbanization, population density and population were used to develop the ARIMA model using R-software. The forecasted performance of the models was validated for each country, which and was found to be within the 95% confidence interval. Estimated forecasts in all seven countries appear to be realistic, but, except for Greece and the U.K., fall short to achieve the U.N.’s 2030 target. Considering these results, countries may review the effects of safety interventions or other socioeconomic influences. Further interventions may be added to the existing model and to ascertain their effect of predicted fatality numbers.
brha Asmelash, Xuesong Wang*, Zaier Zaidi, Bowen Cai, Xiaohan Yang, George Yannis. Traffic Fatality Trends of Seven Developed Countries since 1970: Assessment, Analysis, and Forecast. Transportation Research Board 101st Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, 2022. 1.9-13.