CURRENT STATUS OF USER INFORMATION SERVICE SYSTEM PROJECT IN CHINESE TAIPEI

TPT/WG17/RSEG

Road Safety Experts Group Meeting
FINAL REPORT FOR PHASE I QUESTIONNAIRE OF ROADSAFETY EXPERTS GROUP (Draft)
Chinese Taipei

CONTENTS

1.     Introduction

2.    Phase I Questionnaire

3.     Analysis of Phase I Questionnaire

3.1.    Part One of Phase I Questionnaire

3.2.    Part Two of Phase I Questionnaire

3.3.    Part Three of Phase I Questionnaire

3.4.    Part Four of Phase I Questionnaire

4.     Conclusions and Suggestions

4.1.     Conclusions

4.2.     Suggestions

1. INTRODUCTION

At the 11th Transportation Working Group (TPT-WG) meeting in Seattle, United States, the importance of road safety had been first brought up in the Head of Delegation & Shepherds' Meeting by the Head of Delegation of Chinese Taipei and received wide support from all the members. Therefore, a new paragraph to address this issue had been added to the draft Joint Ministerial Statement (JMS) and submitted for Ministerial consideration. JMS recommended that the Transportation Working Group "establish a group of experts as the first step in enhancing road safety programs in the Region" (see Joint Ministerial Statement, Future Action Safe and Environment-Friendly Transportation Systems, Paragraph 12). Under this recommendation, Chinese Taipei proposed to establish the road transportation safety experts group to focus specifically on road safety issues.

At the 12th TPT-WG meeting in Chinese Taipei, Chinese Taipei proposed a project and this project consists of three phases. Phase I, the start of this project, is to review past experiences in dealing with road transportation safety issues. In phase II, experts will use the knowledge learned from Phase I and decide the better ways to deal with the most common problems. In phase III, a valuable practice manual for improving road transportation safety will be developed based on the findings of the previous phases.

The work in Phase I will focus on two main subjects. They are "Comprehensive Road Transportation Safety Strategy Survey" and "Data Exchange and Analysis". The subject of "Comprehensive Road Transportation Safety Strategy Survey" is to survey the existing road transportation safety strategies conducted by each economy. These include the annual input budget and other resources on road safety, the involved departments or institutions and their roles and responsibilities, the effectiveness of various road safety programs, and so on. This information will help to develop better road transportation safety packages for all economies in the future. Because each APEC economy has its own different accident investigation report, the data (e.g., items, definition, and so on) collected by each economy are different from each other. It would be difficult to share valuable information from these databases. Therefore, in the second subject, several common technical problems will be discussed, such as the design of accident reporting systems, data definition, the development of an APEC road safety data bank, and so on,.

In order to proceed the subjects of Phase I, "Phase I questionnaire" was designed and distributed to collect on the existing road safety strategies and accident data reporting systems of APEC member economies. This report summarizes the survey results of Phase I Questionnaire of the Road Safety Experts Group. The following sections of this report will start by an overview of Phase I Questionnaire. Next, the preliminary analysis results of Phase I questionnaire are presented and this is followed by conclusions and suggestions.

2. PHASE I QUESTIONNAIRE

In order to achieve the objectives of Phase I, "Phase I questionnaire" was designed to review the existing road safety strategies and accident data reporting systems of APEC member economies. The questionnaire contains four parts. The first part is to survey the existing road transportation safety strategies developed and conducted by the Federal Agencies of each economy. APEC member economies are requested to fill in the basic structure of organizations responsible for the road safety packages or programs, the resources and budget spent on road safety programs, and the regular and non-regular works of each organization.

The second and third parts of the Phase I questionnaire are to survey the existing road accident reporting systems currently practiced by each economy. The second part focuses the data items, categories and their definitions recorded in the traffic accident investigating reports. The third part requests the economies to provide if there is summarized information published periodically at a nationwide level (e.g., annual traffic accident reports). The fourth part is to survey general road safety statistics and other related information of each economy, such as total number of accidents, population, total number of households, vehicles and drivers, highway length and so on,.

3 ANALYSIS RESULTS OF PHASE I QUESTIONNAIRE

3.1 Part One of Phase I Questionnaire

Part one of Phase I Questionnaire is to survey the existing road transportation safety strategies developed and conducted by the federal agencies of each economy. The survey of this part focuses on 4 main aspects:

• specific road safety packages and their revised frequency;
• main traffic safety department and related organizations responsible for the road safety packages and their relationships;
• required sources of road safety packages (e.g., annual budget, number of the staff, and the source of budget); and

• regular and non-regular work of the main safety organization.

According to the returned questionnaires, at least eleven economies have package for road safety. For example, Australia has "The National Road Safety Action Plan". Only two economies claim that they have no road safety package. In addition, most economies have the regular revised frequency of the road safety package. The revised frequency generally ranges from three to five years.

2. Table 1 provides the summarized information of main traffic safety department responsible for the road safety packages according to the organization charts provided by APEC economies. Most economies have a designated council or committee responsible for nationwide road safety package. The primary responsibilities include making long-term road safety plans, implementing and monitoring road safety programs, and coordinating all related organizations. For more detailed information on organization charts, one is referred to Appendix A.

 Table 1 The characteristics of the economies' road safety organization structure

In terms of required sources of road safety packages, the survey focuses primarily on annual budget spent, number of the staff, and the source of budget. After carefully reviewing the returned questionnaires, difficulties are found to make comparisons among APEC members under the same basis. The difficulties include the use of fiscal year and calendar year, budget and related staff coming from various organizations, differences in economies' economic backgrounds (e.g., domain area, population, GNP, and so on). But for the source of the budget, most economies have Governments to be the main source of budget for the top road safety organizations. There are only three exceptions, Honk Kong, Singapore, and Korea,. In Hong Kong, seventy percent of annual budget of Hong Kong Police Force (Road Safety Unit) comes from donation, and over eighty percent of the annual budget of Traffic Police Department of Singapore comes from the commerce activities. In Korea, seventeen percent of annual budget of Transportation Safety Policy Coordination Committee comes from private sectors in road safety.

In terms of regular and non-regular work of the main safety organization, the major regular and non-regular duties are mainly include accident-prone location improvement, reducing traffic injuries and fatalities, management of commercial carriers, road user safety, vehicle safety inspection and regulation, reducing alcohol and drug use, improvement of traffic facilities, legislation and enforcement, education and propaganda, accident investigation and traffic accident data maintenance.

3.2 Part Two of Phase I Questionnaire

The survey of Part Two of Phase I Questionnaire, traffic accident investigating report, primarily focuses on two subjects: organization or agents involving in traffic accident investigation, and data items collected in the accident report and their definition. 17 economies provided the information on the organization involving in traffic accident investigation. Among them, most of the economies have police department in charge of investigating traffic accidents. 4 economies have transportation department do the investigating work. Also, most economies publish annual traffic accident statistics providing long term trend of traffic accidents in their own economy. Japan has a designated institute, Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA), specifically working on the traffic accident data integration and research.

For data items collected in accident report and their definition, there are significant differences among all economies. Appendix B gives detailed comparisons of recorded items and their definitions. Generally traffic accident information collected can be classified into five categories: injury severity levels, driver (and passenger) information, vehicle information, environmental (including roadway) conditions, and accident characteristics. According to the returned questionnaires, injury severity levels can be classified into three to four categories: death, injury (serious injury and slightly injury) and no injury. The injury severity level information include drivers and passengers. But the definition of the injury severity levels are different among all economies. For example, some economies define a fatal accident is where one or more persons die within 30 days of the accident, but some economies use 24 hours instead of 30 days. Under this condition, it could be difficult to compare the safety condition among APEC members.

The information on driver generally includes driver’s (and passenger’s) age gender, license status, license class, and education level. Among these data items, license classes vary greatly among economies, especially for commercial vehicles,. Only four economies collect driver’s education information.

The vehicle information primarily includes vehicle types and usage. Because of significant difference of geographic characteristics, income levels and many other factors, vehicle type can be very different among all economies. However, Trailer, truck, bus, passenger car, motorcycle, and bicycle are the common vehicle classification used by APEC members. For further classification (e.g., light vs. heavy vehicle), passenger capacity is commonly used for buses, while gross weight or engine displacement are used for trucks or other vehicles. For the vehicle usage, private and commercial are the common classification. Only a few economies have more detailed classification.

The environmental conditions recorded in traffic accident report generally include roadway conditions (e.g., functional classification, divided or undivided, number of lanes and so on), weather condition, and light condition. Based on the returned questionnaires, the environmental information collected by APEC members is generally similar.

The traffic accident information primarily includes general information of the accident (accident time, location and so on), collision type, and primary contributing circumstance of the accident. As shown in summarized results in Appendix B, the data items collected are similar, but the definition of the items vary greatly. It might be because the use of this information vary among economies. Some economies record this information in a great detail, but some just record more general information. For example, sideswipe collision type are further divided into same-direction sideswipe and opposite-direction sideswipe in some economies.

The comparisons of traffic accident reports used by APEC members show that data items collected are similar, but their definition are significantly different. This result also indicates that it should be cautious if one tries to compare the traffic safety conditions among APEC economies. Overall, the comparisons of data items and their definition of traffic accident reports can provide interesting and valuable insight for all APEC members.

3.3 Part Three of Phase I Questionnaire

The third part of Phase I Questionnaire focuses on the annual road accident statistics and analytical reports of traffic accidents which are published periodically. Annual road accident statistics represents the long-term trend of safety condition of an economy. The part three of Phase I Questionnaire is intended to survey what kinds of general information (e.g., number of accidents, injuries in accidents, vehicles involved in accidents, registered vehicles, population, accident rate, and so on) of traffic safety are available for APEC economies.

Thirteen economies provided the information and a total of 18 reports is available. Summarized information of these reports are provided in Appendix C. Ten of them are general reports showing the long-term traffic accident statistics in their own economies and the rest are special reports specifically for traffic accident analysis. The majority of general reports provide summarized statistics including total number of accidents, total number of fatal accidents, total number of deaths in accidents, total number of injuries in accidents, total number of vehicles involved in accidents, total number of registered vehicles and the accident rate based on number of vehicles. Although these summarized statistics can provide the valuable traffic safety information of APEC members, one should not used them to compare each other, because of the differences of data definition described in the previous section.

The survey also focuses on if there is more detailed information available in the general statistical reports. For example, drunk driving and speeding are common traffic safety problems. Under this condition, the number of accidents resulted form drunk driving and speeding are particularly important to traffic engineers. Therefore, it would be interesting to see if the general reports contain these more detailed statistics.

According to the returned questionnaire, most economies have more detailed statistics for different driver groups in their general reports. For example, more than half of economies provide information on the number of accidents and fatalities for different gender and age groups, while several economies also provide accident statistics for driver of different licensee status.

In addition, the accident involvement of different vehicle types, such as truck accidents, often raise great interest for the general public and traffic engineer. Eight economies provide aggregate information on the number of vehicles involved in accidents and/or the number of fatalities by different vehicle types, such as bus, truck, passenger car, motorcycle and bicycle,. Also, there are six economies provide aggregate information on the number of vehicles involved in accidents and/or the number of vehicles involved in fatal accident by the vehicle usage (e.g., commercial vehicle) in their annual reports.

The effects of environmental factors, such as weather and light conditions, on traffic accident can be significant. The statistics of traffic accidents under various environmental conditions also provide important information to traffic engineers. Among APEC members, most economies provide summarized statistics of the number of accidents and/or the number of deaths in accidents by weather and light conditions.

The statistics of traffic accidents against various accident characteristics always provide valuable information to traffic safety authorities, traffic engineers and the general public. For example, number of fatalities resulted from drunk driving is always important information. According to the returned questionnaires, six economies provide summarized statistics (e.g., the number of accidents, and the number of fatalities in accidents) by different accident types, while nine economies these statistics by various primary contributing circumstance in their annual reports.

The comparisons of general statistics of traffic accidents provided in annual reports for APEC members primarily provide basic but valuable information for one interested in analyzing the traffic accident safety situations in Pacific region. But as described in the previous section, the definitions of various factors (e.g., vehicle type and use) used by one economy may be significantly different from the other. One should be cautious in interpretation of these statistics.

3.4 Part Four of Phase I Questionnaire

Part four of the Phase I questionnaire extends the survey of Part three to collect quantitative information of road safety statistics provided in the annual report. The survey focuses on both traffic accident statistics and other related information. The traffic accident statistics include number of accidents, and number of involved persons, and so on. The related information include number of households, number of drivers, population, number of vehicles, total road length and so on. The questionnaire also surveys if there has been any significant road safety problem in the economies. Appendix D summarizes the statistics provided by the economies.

Although the comparisons of safety situations among APEC members are difficult to make due to the significant differences in data definitions (e.g., injury severity levels) and incomplete information, the summarized information in Appendix D still provides valuable information. For example, one can examine the road safety trend for an individual economy or road safety situation in its neighboring economy.

Finally, the final part of the questionnaire is to survey if there has been any major road safety problem in the economies. Six economies provided this information. Among those problems encountered in APEC members, aggressive or bad driving behavior is the most common problem. Other problems include pedestrian safety, and motorcycle safety. Therefore, a Twelve Major Road Safety Problems (12 MP) Study was conducted for the common road safety problems in APEC economies in order to obtain more detailed information. The analysis results are expected to be available by the next meeting.

4 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

4.1 Conclusions

1. Most economies have road safety packages for a specific problem and the revised frequency for these packages generally ranges from three to five years. The traffic safety departments are responsible for the road safety packages, and their primary responsibilities include making long-term road safety plans, implementing and monitoring road safety programs, and coordinating all related organizations.
2. The survey of traffic accident investigating report indicates that most of the economies have police department in charge of investigating traffic accidents. Only 4 economies have transportation department do the investigating work. For the data items collected in traffic accident investigating report, most economies record similar data, but the definitions of data vary significantly.
3. Most of economies have annual reports showing the long-term traffic accident statistics in their own economies and some economies have special reports for specific traffic safety problems. The majority of general reports provide summarized statistics including total number of accidents, total number of fatal accidents, total number of deaths in accidents, total number of injuries in accidents, total number of vehicles involved in accidents, total number of registered vehicles and the accident rate based on number of vehicles.
4. This study extended the survey of quantitative information of traffic accidents provided in annual reports for APEC members. The information provides basic information for one interested in analyzing the traffic accident safety situations in Pacific region. Also, it allows one to examine the road safety trend for an individual economy or road safety situation in its neighboring economy.
5. The questionnaire also surveys if there has been any major road safety problem in the economies. Aggressive or improper driving behavior is the most common problem encountered in APEC members. Other problems include pedestrian safety, and motorcycle safety. In order to collect more experiences in dealing these safety problems by APEC members, a Twelve Major Road Safety Problems (12 MP) Study was conducted. The results of 12MP study will provide valuable information for economies to deal with similar problems in the future.

4.2 Suggestions

Traffic accident data recorded in the accident reports are similar among APEC members. However, the definition of these data vary significantly. This will limit APEC economies to further share the information in traffic analysis and presentation. Therefore, a database of traffic accidents for APEC economies is suggested. The way to build this database is also suggested to follow the way International Road Foundation (IRF) does, including data items and their definitions. The database will further promote the traffic analysis and also identify significant factors for traffic safety in this region. In addition, not only traffic accident problems encountered in APEC economies are similar, but also more new problems are popping up, such as aged drivers. If more experiences in dealing with these problems can be collected would be beneficial to all APEC members in the future, especially for developing economies. Therefore, all economies are encouraged to provide more experiences in dealing any traffic safety problems and future studies are suggested to focus more on the strategies and their effectiveness.

This page was last updated on 17 March 2000