Prediction of Road Crash Fatalities for Pakistan using Aggregate Data

Abstract

Nations around the globe continue to face the challenges posed by alarming increase in number of road crash fatalities (RCF) and injuries. About 1.24 million people die every year in road traffic crashes worldwide and approximately 20 to 50 million suffer from non-fatal injuries. Reliable estimates of road crash fatalities of a country, is a vital element needed for road safety improvement efforts. Pakistan with a diverse road network and vehicle fleet has high road crash fatality rate. Reliability of current annual road crash fatality estimates for Pakistan becomes highly questionable due to lack of reliable data and use of inappropriate methodologies used in past studies. The present study aimed to predict RCF for Pakistan using two different data sets and different model specifications. First set of models used police reported annual number of RCF for Pakistan while the second set of models used data obtained from international organizations like World Health Organization (WHO) and International Road Federation (IRF). RCF were predicted from year 2014 to 2040 and results were compared with national and international estimates. Overall, 21,095 RCF were predicted for year 2014, compared to approximately 30,000 annual fatalities predicted by WHO (2013) and 5,323 (2012) reported by police. Analysis of the results indicated that use of police reported data results into under prediction, while methodology adopted by WHO over predicts the annual road crash fatalities for Pakistan. The study also carried out a detailed comparison of RCF rates of Pakistan with other regional countries and international trends. This study also presents a comprehensive documentation and discussion of state of road safety and related factors for Pakistan. The road crash fatality estimates can be used by National Highway Authority and Ministry of Communication as an input for formulation of multipronged road safety improvement policy for Pakistan.