Linking economic activity, road safety countermeasures and other factors with the Victorian road toll

In 1990, the Victorian road toll decreased 29% from the previous year to 548 fatalities at a time when the State's economy was (and still is) experiencing, a severe downturn in economic activity. The principal objective of this project was to link the Victorian road toll with economic, road safety, social and other factors using econometric methods and historical data to identify the relevance of the various factors and their contribution to the 1990 decrease. The models developed explained about 50% of the variations in the monthly Victorian road toll during 1985-90, and clear links were found between the different type of factors and the road toll (however causal links could not be established with the methods used). The impacts of these factors on the 1990 road toll were estimated. The models were also validated using 1991 data and were found to predict the 1991 monthly totals in the road toll reasonably well, though the annual prediction was 14% less than the actual. Recommendations for further work were made.