Contribution of vehicle safety improvements and infrastructure investment on reducing road trauma in Victoria and projected future benefits

Vehicle safety and infrastructure improvements are two major road safety program areas that have made significant contributions to the reduction of road trauma under the Safe System. In Victoria over the past 10 years, there have been increasing improvements in the safety of the vehicle fleet and significant investment in safer road infrastructure through the TAC funded Safer Road Infrastructure Program (SRIP). The aim of this work was to estimate the impact of each road safety program area on road trauma as represented by measured improvements in the light vehicle fleet and major investment in safer infrastructure through SRIP, and to project their future benefits. Time series models were constructed over the period 2006 to 2014 with separate models developed for fatalities and serious injuries. These models were then used to produce forecasts of future trends in deaths and serious injuries. It was evident that each program area has been very successful in achieving significant savings in death and serious injury. However, the estimated fatal and serious injury future trends indicated that the ongoing issue of serious injury trauma will require particular focus and effort by road safety policymakers to address. Whilst this work demonstrates the effectiveness of vehicle safety improvements and infrastructure investment on preventing serious road trauma, the projected future benefits of these key road safety program areas highlight how critically important it is to continue to invest in proven road safety programs if the benefits that have been achieved thus far are to continue going forward