Effects of economic recession on road safety indexes

Abstract

During the last years, the investment in both construction and conservation of transport infrastructures has been considerably reduced in several countries, as Spain. After a number of years in which economic circumstances have forced Governments to reduce budgets earmarked for the maintenance and creation of new ways, it is interesting to analyze whether this has taken a toll on accident rates. The paper evaluates if there are significant changes in the road safety through these years in Spain, comparing the annual statistics concerning investment in infrastructure and accidents. Thus, the classical risk, mortality and severity indexes have been analyzed to understand their real trends. Finally, through linear regression techniques, it is shown how these trends are related to the budgets invested each year, in order to draw interesting conclusions about the effect of their reduction.