Road Safety for All: The Impact of Sociodemographic Inequalities on Road Safety

A special issue of Safety (ISSN 2313-576X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2023) | Viewed by 4618

Special Issue Editor

Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15773 Athens, Greece
Interests: transportation safety; crash prediction; autonomous vehicles; data science; mental health and equity in road safety

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The emergence of vehicle automation and new mobility concepts such as micromobility, along with and the extensive flow of data, have paved the way for road safety researchers and practitioners to investigate sophisticated approaches to mitigate crashes and promote safe travel behavior. Today, road safety systems can be both proactive and reactive, using state-of-the art statistical and machine learning methods to predict and explain operations in real time, with “Vision Zero” and “Safety II” being key terms in the research literature. Nevertheless, in the majority of current road safety studies and practices, countries and areas with low- and middle-income citizens, as well as marginalized populations such as racial or cultural minorities and people with mental or cognitive impairment, are not considered.

In the past few years, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing global energy crisis have disrupted the normal operation of transportation systems and have significantly affected not only road safety and travel behavior but also the well-being of citizens worldwide. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, policies with differing strictness were applied in different parts of the world, leading to different safety outcomes, such as a reduction in fatalities, but also a deterioration in the mental health conditions of people whose movement was restricted, who often showed increased levels of anxiety and depression. Although the interrelationship between socioeconomic or energy disruptions and driving or travel behavior has been established, the effects of sociodemographic or mental inequalities on road safety remain uncertain and lead to another imbalance in the studied population samples.

Building on the abovementioned aspects, this Special Issue aims to explore the effect of sociodemographic inequalities on road safety. Researchers are invited to submit manuscripts regarding all aspects of road safety (e.g., crash prediction, crash frequency analysis, safety assessment, and driving behavior) using traditional or machine learning approaches, with special focus on study areas that include marginalized and low-income populations, as well as the effect of mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression, road rage, and cognitive impairment) on road safety and driving behavior. Papers regarding key challenges and policy recommendations for diminishing the aforementioned inequalities in road safety studies are especially welcome.

Dr. Christos Katrakazas
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • road safety
  • social and economic inequalities
  • mental health effects
  • marginalised populations
  • driving/travel behavior
  • policy recommendations

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 990 KiB  
Article
Modelling the Impact of Driver Work Environment on Driving Performance among Oil and Gas Heavy Vehicles: SEM-PLS
by Al-Baraa Abdulrahman Al-Mekhlafi, Ahmad Shahrul Nizam Isha, Ali Nasser Al-Tahitah, Ahmed Farouk Kineber, Baker Nasser Saleh Al-Dhawi and Muhammad Ajmal
Safety 2023, 9(3), 48; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety9030048 - 20 Jul 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1452
Abstract
Driving heavy vehicles with dangerous cargo involves various work environments that can significantly impact road safety. This research aims to study the impact of oil and gas tanker drivers’ work environment on driving performance to identify and address any issues that may affect [...] Read more.
Driving heavy vehicles with dangerous cargo involves various work environments that can significantly impact road safety. This research aims to study the impact of oil and gas tanker drivers’ work environment on driving performance to identify and address any issues that may affect their ability to carry out their jobs effectively. To achieve this, a quantitative approach was employed using a questionnaire survey adapted from the literature review. The data collected from a sample of drivers of oil- and gas-heavy vehicles were analyzed using structural equation modelling. The study’s findings reveal a significant association between the drivers’ work environment and driving performance, represented by a path coefficient of β = 0.237. These results highlight the substantial contribution of the work environment to driving performance, with an effect of 63%. Consequently, the study emphasizes the importance of considering the work environment as a potential factor when assessing and enhancing tanker drivers’ driving abilities during oil and gas transportation. Full article
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15 pages, 1905 KiB  
Article
Traffic Fatalities and Urban Infrastructure: A Spatial Variability Study Using Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression Applied in Cali (Colombia)
by Harvy Vivas Pacheco, Diego Rodríguez-Mariaca, Ciro Jaramillo, Andrés Fandiño-Losada and María Isabel Gutiérrez-Martínez
Safety 2023, 9(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/safety9020034 - 25 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1872
Abstract
The mobility plan and the road infrastructure works implemented, together with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) connected bus system in its first two phases, generated optimistic expectations about the reduction of lethal crashes in the city. This research studies the relationship between investments [...] Read more.
The mobility plan and the road infrastructure works implemented, together with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) connected bus system in its first two phases, generated optimistic expectations about the reduction of lethal crashes in the city. This research studies the relationship between investments in transportation infrastructure in the city and the distribution of traffic fatalities. Although it is not strictly speaking an impact assessment, the approach we propose performs geostatistical contrasts between intervened and non-intervened areas, using a geographically weighted model that attempts to model the spatial variability of the factors associated with the intra-urban road traffic crash rate, controlling for infrastructure interventions and some proxy indicators of urban structure. The findings reveal that fatalities decreased in areas both with and without intervention. Despite the expectation of reducing fatal injuries, the differential effects of the interventions were relatively small. The risk of road traffic crashes was even increased in critical points of the city with recurrent lethal crashes. The effects of road interventions on fatal road traffic crashes in Cali did not correspond to the high social and economic costs involved in the BRT system and the work plan. Full article
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