Abstract: In February 2020, the Stockholm Declaration was announced, urging states toward the United Nation’s target of a 50% reduction in traffic deaths and injuries by 2030, with the potential to achieve Vision Zero by 2050. The aim of this research is threefold namely i) to assess if selected developed countries are likely to achieve the 2030 target, ii) to use the Gompertz model to predict future road trauma trends based on historical data and iii) to understand how number of road traffic fatality vary between the developed countries. After identifying potential reasons behind the patterns, time series models were applied to identify the effects of exposure variables on traffic fatalities. To assess the likelihood of meeting the U.N. target, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were used for obtaining trustworthy forecasts of road traffic fatalities using data from the last five decades from seven high-income countries. The total number of fatalities, vehicle-km travelled, vehicle ownership, GDP, GDP per capita, urbanization, population density and country population were used to develop the ARIMA models. The predictive performance of the models was validated for each country, and all were found to be within the 95% confidence interval. Estimated forecasts in all seven countries appear to be realistic, with Greece and the U.K., the only countries falling short of achieving the U.N.’s 2030 target. With these results, both developed and developing countries can review and reconsider the effects of safety interventions and other socioeconomic influences on achieving reductions in road fatalities. Interventions can be added to the existing model to ascertain their effect on the predicted number of fatalities.
Abrha Asmelash, Xuesong Wang*, Zaier Zaidi, Bowen Cai, Xiaohan Yang, George yannis, Stevenson Mark. Traffic Fatality Trends of Seven Developed Countries since 1970: Assessment, Analysis, and Forecast. Analysis, and Forecast, 2022, 1556-5068.