The relative efficiency of Iranian’s rural traffic police: a three-stage DEA model

BackgroundRoad traffic Injuries (RTIs) as a health problem imposes governments to implement different interventions. Target achievement in this issue required effective and efficient measures. Efficiency evaluation of traffic police as one of the responsible administrators is necessary for resource management. Therefore, this study conducted to measure Iran’s rural traffic police efficiency.MethodsThis was an ecological study. To obtain pure efficiency score, three-stage DEA model was conducted with seven inputs and three output variables. At the first stage, crude efficiency score was measured with BCC-O model. Next, to extract the effects of socioeconomic, demographic, traffic count and road infrastructure as the environmental variables and statistical noise, the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) model was applied and the output values were modified according to similar environment and statistical noise conditions. Then, the pure efficiency score was measured using modified outputs and BCC-O model.ResultsIn total, the efficiency score of 198 police stations from 24 provinces of 31 provinces were measured. The annual means (standard deviation) of damage, injury and fatal accidents were 247.7 (258.4), 184.9 (176.9), and 28.7 (19.5), respectively. Input averages were 5.9 (3.0) patrol teams, 0.5% (0.2) manpower proportions, 7.5 (2.9) patrol cars, 0.5 (1.3) motorcycles, 77,279.1 (46,794.7) penalties, 90.9 (2.8) cultural and educational activity score, 0.7 (2.4) speed cameras. The SFA model showed non-significant differences between police station performances and the most differences attributed to the environmental and random error. One-way main road, by road, traffic count and the number of household owning motorcycle had significant positive relations with inefficiency score. The length of freeway/highway and literacy rate variables had negative relations, significantly. Pure efficiency score was with mean of 0.95 and SD of 0.09.ConclusionsIran’s traffic police has potential opportunity to reduce RTIs. Adjusting police performance with environmental conditions is necessary. Capability of DEA method in setting quantitative targets for every station induces motivation for managers to reduce RTIs. Repetition of this study is recommended, annually.

[1]  A. U.S.,et al.  Measuring the efficiency of decision making units , 2003 .

[2]  T. Rundmo,et al.  Culture related to road traffic safety: a comparison of eight countries using two conceptualizations of culture. , 2014, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[3]  T Rooijers,et al.  An experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of different methods and intensities of law enforcement on driving speed on motorways. , 1994, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[4]  Sarah Boslaugh,et al.  Encyclopedia of epidemiology , 2008 .

[5]  C. Mathers.  Global Burden of Disease , 2008 .

[6]  Ayad Bahadorimonfared,et al.  Trends of Fatal Road Traffic Injuries in Iran (2004–2011) , 2013, PloS one.

[7]  QU Feng,et al.  Wrong Skewness and Finite Sample Correction in Parametric Stochastic Frontier Models , 2013 .

[8]  George Yannis,et al.  Impact of enforcement on traffic accidents and fatalities: A multivariate multilevel analysis , 2008 .

[9]  Chris S Dula,et al.  Policing the drunk driver: measuring law enforcement involvement in reducing alcohol-impaired driving. , 2007, Journal of safety research.

[10]  W. Cooper,et al.  Data Envelopment Analysis: A Comprehensive Text with Models, Applications, References and DEA-Solver Software , 1999 .

[11]  P. W. Wilson,et al.  Sensitivity Analysis of Efficiency Scores: How to Bootstrap in Nonparametric Frontier Models , 1998 .

[12]  E. Faerstein,et al.  A DICTIONARY OF EPIDEMIOLOGY , 2016 .

[13]  G. Battese,et al.  A model for technical inefficiency effects in a stochastic frontier production function for panel data , 1995 .

[14]  Habibollah Rahimi,et al.  Traffic police effectiveness and efficiency evaluations, an overview of methodological considerations , 2016 .

[15]  Amir Reza Mamdoohi,et al.  Road Traffic Culture and Personality Traits Related to Traffic Safety in Turkish and Iranian Samples , 2014 .

[16]  Aleksander Aristovnik,et al.  Performance measurement of police forces at the local level: A non-parametric mathematical programming approach , 2014, Expert Syst. Appl..

[17]  Geert Wets,et al.  Benchmarking road safety: lessons to learn from a data envelopment analysis. , 2009, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[18]  Juan Aparicio,et al.  Translation Invariance in Data Envelopment Analysis , 2015 .

[19]  Jeremy Broughton,et al.  The effects of increased police enforcement along a route in London. , 2011, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[20]  P. Andersen,et al.  A procedure for ranking efficient units in data envelopment analysis , 1993 .

[21]  Gokhan Egilmez,et al.  Benchmarking road safety of U.S. states: a DEA-based Malmquist productivity index approach. , 2013, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[22]  Aleksander Aristovnik,et al.  Relative efficiency of police directorates in Slovenia: A non-parametric analysis , 2013, Expert Syst. Appl..

[23]  A. Charnes,et al.  Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis , 1984 .

[24]  N N Sze,et al.  Association between setting quantified road safety targets and road fatality reduction. , 2006, Accident; analysis and prevention.