A Forecasting Model for Setting Road Safety Targets Based on Time Series Analysis

In 2012, traffic fatalities made up the maximum portion of total production accident fatalities in China, accounting for 83.35%. To tackle road safety problems, the Chinese central government set a national road safety target, requiring each local government above the county level to make its own target. The purpose of this paper is to propose a road safety forecasting model which can be used in local road safety target setting. Through discussing the needs of road safety forecasting for target setting, the error correction model (ECM) is built based on time series theory. In the model, the input variable is gross domestic product (GDP) and the output variable is road death rate. The prediction results can be a good reference to policymakers on the choice of their targets.