Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation completes the management loop in a country results-based management system and comprises systematic performance of all the elements of the road safety management system.

Monitoring and evaluation' function is addressed by 3 main functions [5]:

Establishing and/or supporting a range of data systems to set and monitor final and intermediate outcome and output targets.
Transparent review of the national road safety strategy and its performance along the dimensions of results, interventions and institutional management functions.
Making any necessary adjustments to interventions and institutional outputs needed to achieve the desired results.

Periodic monitoring and evaluation of road safety targets and programs is essential to assess performance and to allow adjustments to be made. The establishment and sustainable funding of transport registries for drivers and vehicles, crash injury databases and periodic survey work to establish performance and exposure data is typically the responsibility of several different Government agencies - transport, police, and health. In some countries, Government insurance departments or organizations and university departments also share responsibility. The organization of independent inspection, audit and review are also part of this function [5].

OECD[52]recommendation

Conduct sufficient data collection and analysis to understand crash risks and current performance

All countries are encouraged to develop data collection procedures to cover: final outcomes

(including at least deaths and serious injuries by road user); exposure measures (for example, relating

outcomes to population levels, licensed driver numbers, distances travelled); intermediate outcomes (also called safety performance indicators and including levels of mean traffic speeds, seat belt wearing, drink driving and vehicle and infrastructure safety ratings); institutional delivery outputs (including different categories of enforcement effort); socio-economic costs associated with road trauma; and underlying economic factors (including new vehicle sales).

Careful data analysis should be conducted to improve understanding of crash and other trends to allow different intervention mixes and intensities to be modelled and ambitious but achievable targets to be set.

For example intermediate outcome data (or safety performance indicators) are collected for target setting purposes, to monitoring the impact of a measure or programme, enable early, target-oriented adjustments of specific interventions and allow for a more detailed understanding of the reasons for safety problems than is possible by looking at crash frequency alone [27][60].

Intermediate outcome data systems

Intermediate outcomes are not desired for themselves but for what they entail - better final outcomes. They include average traffic speeds, the proportion of drunk drivers, seatbelt-wearing rates, helmet-wearing rates, and the physical condition of the road network and the standard of the vehicle fleet. Along with final outcome data, they provide a firm basis for multi-sectoral working to achieve road safety results. Where fragmentary arrangements exist for the collection and analysis of country-wide data on road traffic deaths and injuries, intermediate outcome data can provide, in the interim, a useful starting point for the measurement of country safety performance in the development to inform the national road safety strategy. Most intermediate outcome data comprises the carrying out of periodic national surveys of key safety indicators in normal traffic. Typical indicators in use include:

Average travel speed on urban and rural roads
Percentage of front seat belt use in cars
Percentage of rear seat belt use in cars
Percentage of child restraint use in cars
Percentage of excess alcohol amongst drivers
Percentage of motorized two wheeler users wearing crash helmets
Percentage of cyclists wearing crash helmets
Percentage of motor vehicles using daytime running lights
Ambulance response times within the emergency medical system
Percentage of cars in the national fleet with NCAP four star safety ratings

Source Bliss and Breen, 2008[5].

Transparent review by independent experts and research organizations: In Sweden and Britain, in-house reviews of progress are supplemented by published review of national road safety performance usually carried out by an independent organization. Additionally, In Sweden, a road traffic inspectorate was set up to monitor the rate and quality of implementation of the Vision Zero strategy. From 1^st January 2009 the a new Transport Inspectorate will be created covering road, rail, air and water modes. In 2008, an independent review of road safety management in Sweden was carried out for the Swedish Road Administration using the World Bank assessment framework [8].

SafetyNet has produced Recommendations for independent accident investigation (WP4) for large scale coordinated European road accident investigation activities based on common methodology.