DATABASE FOR THE ANALYSIS OF ROAD ACCIDENTS IN EUROPE

This database that can be used for macro-level analysis of road accidents on interurban roads in Europe. Through the variables it contains, road accidents can be explained using variables related to economic resources invested in roads, traffic, road network, socioeconomic characteristics, legislative measures and meteorology. This repository contains the data used for the analysis carried out in the papers:

1. Calvo-Poyo F., Navarro-Moreno J., de Oña J. (2020) Road Investment and Traffic Safety: An International Study. Sustainability 12:6332. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166332

2. Navarro-Moreno J., Calvo-Poyo F., de Oña J. (2022) Influence of road investment and maintenance expenses on injured traffic crashes in European roads. Int J Sustain Transp 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/15568318.2022.2082344

3. Navarro-Moreno, J., Calvo-Poyo, F., de Oña, J. (2022) Investment in roads and traffic safety: linked to economic development? A European comparison. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22567

The file with the database is available in excel.

DATA SOURCES

The database presents data from 1998 up to 2016 from 20 european countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. Crash data were obtained from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) [2], which offers enough level of disaggregation between crashes occurring inside versus outside built-up areas.

With reference to the data on economic resources invested in roadways, deserving mention –given its extensive coverage—is the database of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), managed by the International Transport Forum (ITF) [1], which collects data on investment in the construction of roads and expenditure on their maintenance, following the definitions of the United Nations System of National Accounts (2008 SNA). Despite some data gaps, the time series present consistency from one country to the next. Moreover, to confirm the consistency and complete missing data, diverse additional sources, mainly the national Transport Ministries of the respective countries were consulted. All the monetary values were converted to constant prices in 2015 using the OECD price index.

To obtain the rest of the variables in the database, as well as to ensure consistency in the time series and complete missing data, the following national and international sources were consulted:

• Eurostat [3]
• Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE). European Union [4]
• The World Bank [5]
• World Health Organization (WHO) [6]
• European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) [7]
• European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO) [8]
• European Climatic Energy Mixes (ECEM) of the Copernicus Climate Change [9]
• EU BestPoint-Project [10]
• Ministerstvo dopravy, República Checa [11]
• Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur, Alemania [12]
• Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat, Países Bajos [13]
• National Statistics Office, Malta [14]
• Ministério da Economia e Transição Digital, Portugal [15]
• Ministerio de Fomento, España [16]
• Trafikverket, Suecia [17]
• Ministère de l’environnement de l’énergie et de la mer, Francia [18]
• Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti, Italia [19–25]
• Statistisk sentralbyrå, Noruega [26-29]
• Instituto Nacional de Estatística, Portugal [30]
• Infraestruturas de Portugal S.A., Portugal [31–35]
• Road Safety Authority (RSA), Ireland [36]

 

DATA BASE DESCRIPTION

The database was made trying to combine the longest possible time period with the maximum number of countries with complete dataset (some countries like Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta and Norway were eliminated from the definitive dataset owing to a lack of data or breaks in the time series of records). Taking into account the above, the definitive database is made up of 19 variables, and contains data from 20 countries during the period between 1998 and 2016. Table 1 shows the coding of the variables, as well as their definition and unit of measure.

 

Table. Database metadata

Code	Variable and unit
fatal_pc_km	Fatalities per billion passenger-km
fatal_mIn	Fatalities per million inhabitants
accid_adj_pc_km	Accidents per billion passenger-km
p_km	Billions of passenger-km
croad_inv_km	Investment in roads construction per kilometer, €/km (2015 constant prices)
croad_maint_km	Expenditure on roads maintenance per kilometer €/km (2015 constant prices)
prop_motorwa	Proportion of motorways over the total road network (%)
populat	Population, in millions of inhabitants
unemploy	Unemployment rate (%)
petro_car	Consumption of gasolina and petrol derivatives (tons), per tourism
alcohol	Alcohol consumption, in liters per capita (age > 15)
mot_index	Motorization index, in cars per 1,000 inhabitants
den_populat	Population density, inhabitants/km2
cgdp	Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in € (2015 constant prices)
cgdp_cap	GDP per capita, in € (2015 constant prices)
precipit	Average depth of rain water during a year (mm)
prop_elder	Proportion of people over 65 years (%)
dps	Demerit Point System, dummy variable (0: no; 1: yes)
freight	Freight transport, in billions of ton-km

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This database was carried out in the framework of the project “Inversión en carreteras y seguridad vial: un análisis internacional (INCASE)”, financed by: FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades–Agencia Estatal de Investigación/Proyecto RTI2018-101770-B-I00, within Spain´s National Program of R+D+i Oriented to Societal Challenges.

Moreover, the authors would like to express their gratitude to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of Spain (MITMA), and the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany (BMVI) for providing data for this study.

 

REFERENCES

 

1.      International Transport Forum OECD iLibrary | Transport infrastructure investment and maintenance.

2.      United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNECE Statistical Database Available online: https://w3.unece.org/PXWeb2015/pxweb/en/STAT/STAT__40-TRTRANS/?rxid=18ad5d0d-bd5e-476f-ab7c-40545e802eeb (accessed on Apr 28, 2020).

3.      European Commission Database - Eurostat Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database (accessed on Apr 28, 2021).

4.      Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport. European Commission EU Transport in figures - Statistical Pocketbooks Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics_en (accessed on Apr 28, 2021).

5.      World Bank Group World Bank Open Data | Data Available online: https://data.worldbank.org/ (accessed on Apr 30, 2021).

6.      World Health Organization (WHO) WHO Global Information System on Alcohol and Health Available online: https://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.GISAH?lang=en (accessed on Apr 29, 2021).

7.      European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) Traffic Law Enforcement across the EU - Tackling the Three Main Killers on Europe’s Roads; Brussels, Belgium, 2011;

8.      Copernicus Climate Change Service Climate data for the European energy sector from 1979 to 2016 derived from ERA-Interim Available online: https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/sis-european-energy-sector?tab=overview (accessed on Apr 29, 2021).

9.      Klipp, S.; Eichel, K.; Billard, A.; Chalika, E.; Loranc, M.D.; Farrugia, B.; Jost, G.; Møller, M.; Munnelly, M.; Kallberg, V.P.; et al. European Demerit Point Systems : Overview of their main features and expert opinions. EU BestPoint-Project 2011, 1–237.

10.    Ministerstvo dopravy Serie: Ročenka dopravy; Ročenka dopravy; Centrum dopravního výzkumu: Prague, Czech Republic;

11.    Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur Verkehr in Zahlen 2003/2004; Hamburg, Germany, 2004; ISBN 3871542946.

12.    Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur Verkehr in Zahlen 2018/2019. In Verkehrsdynamik; Flensburg, Germany, 2018 ISBN 9783000612947.

13.    Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat Rijksjaarverslag 2018 a Infrastructuurfonds; The Hague, Netherlands, 2019; ISBN 0921-7371.

14.    Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu Rijksjaarverslag 2014 a Infrastructuurfonds; The Hague, Netherlands, 2015; ISBN 0921- 7371.

15.    Ministério da Economia e Transição Digital Base de Dados de Infraestruturas - GEE Available online: https://www.gee.gov.pt/pt/publicacoes/indicadores-e-estatisticas/base-de-dados-de-infraestruturas (accessed on Apr 29, 2021).

16.    Ministerio de Fomento. Dirección General de Programación Económica y Presupuestos. Subdirección General de Estudios Económicos y Estadísticas Serie: Anuario estadístico; NIPO 161-13-171-0; Centro de Publicaciones. Secretaría General Técnica. Ministerio de Fomento: Madrid, Spain;

17.    Trafikverket The Swedish Transport Administration Annual report: 2017; 2018; ISBN 978-91-7725-272-6.

18.    Ministère de l’Équipement,  du T. et de la M. Mémento de statistiques des transports 2003; Ministère de l’environnement de l’énergie et de la mer, 2005;

19.    Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anno 2000; Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato: Roma, Italy, 2001;

20.    Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto nazionale dei trasporti 1999. 2000.

21.    Generale, D.; Informativi, S. delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anno 2004.

22.    Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anno 2001; 2002;

23.    Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anni 2007-2008. 2009.

24.    Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Anni 2016-2017. 2018.

25.    Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti Conto Nazionale delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti. Anni 2014-2015; 2016;

26.    Statistics Norway Statistical Yearbook of Norway 2000; Ad Notam Gyldendal: Oslo, Norway, 2000; ISBN 82-537-4820-5.

27.    Statistics Norway Statistical Yearbook of Norway 2001; Gnist.Akademika: Oslo, Norway, 2001; ISBN 8253749600.

28.    Statistics Norway Statistical Yearbook of Norway 2002; Gnist.Akadernika: Oslo, Norway, 2002; ISBN 8253750927.

29.    Statistics Norway Statistical Yearbook of Norway 2004; Gnist.Akademika: Oslo, Norway, 2004; ISBN 82-537-6616-5.

30.    Instituto Nacional de Estatística Estatísticas dos transportes e comunicações 2000; Instituto Nacional de Estatística: Lisbon, Portugal, 2002;

31.    Estradas de Portugal S.A. Relatório e Contas 2011; Almada, Portugal, 2012;

32.    Estradas de Portugal S.A. Relatório e Contas 2012; Lisboa, Portugal, 2013;

33.    Estradas de Portugal S.A. Relatório e Contas 2010; Lisboa, Portugal, 2011;

34.    Infraestruturas de Portugal S.A. Relatório e Contas 2015; Pragal, Portugal, 2016;

35.    Infraestruturas de Portugal S.A. Relatório e Contas 2018; Almada, Portugal, 2019;

36.    Road Safety Authority Road Collision Factbook; Ballina, Ireland;