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A new decision-support system for road safety policy

The recently proposed Dutch National Traffic and Transport Plan (NVVP) announced a series of road safety plans and programmes intended to achieve the national government’s road safety objective for the year 2010. A significant number of these measures will have to be worked out in further detail and implemented by regional governments. SWOV has developed a method to support these regional governments in making their decisions about regional road safety policy until 2010.

The Dutch government is preparing a new National Traffic and Transport Plan (NVVP) for the 2002-2010 period. After processing recommendations and public reactions, the preliminary plan was recently submitted to parliament for approval. The road safety section in the NVVP formulates an objective for the year 2010 as follows: no more than 750 road deaths and no more than 14,000 injuries requiring hospital care. In comparison with the reference year of 1998, this would mean 30% fewer road deaths and 25% fewer injuries requiring hospital care. A vision of a sustainably safe system of road traffic is providing a general indication of how this objective can be reached.

The NVVP announces measures for changing the road network, improving traffic behaviour, and equipping vehicles. The national government will be working out and implementing some of these measures, but a significant number will have to be engaged in by the provinces and municipalities. The total cost for the package of measures has been estimated by SWOV to be around € 5.9 billion (NLG 13.1 billion). While the national government should be contributing € 1,4 billion, the provinces and municipalities should be contributing € 2.9 billion and the private sector (transport companies, prospective drivers) € 1,6 billion. Because the provinces and municipalities work out their traffic and road safety policy largely on their own, the NVVP also indicates how all the levels of government will have to work together to achieve the national objective for 2010. Previous to the parliamentary approval of the NVVP, a start was recently made in preparing for regional planning. This article describes how this process of co-operation is designed, which decisions will have to be made during the first phase of regional planning, and what support SWOV will be offering in this regard.

Decentralise whenever possible, centralise only when necessary

This slogan summarises the national government’s ideas in regard to the distribution of responsibilities for road safety policy among the various tiers of government. Traditionally, the Dutch provinces and municipalities have been responsible for managing the lower-order roads and have thus been responsible for the safety of these roads. In recent decades, this distribution of responsibility has become increasingly apparent. The national government has also gradually been decentralising tasks and authorities for other elements of road safety policy. At first, this was done by means of ad hoc agreements and temporary arrangements among the tiers of government. The Traffic and Transport Planning Act, introduced in 1998, systematically revised the tasks and authorities of all parties involved. Each is now required to draw up a cohesive traffic and transport plan for its own territory that also considers the plan of the tier of government one level above it. The national government can impose certain parts of the national plan that are labelled as ‘essential’ onto the provinces (and they can then impose these onto the municipalities). In the safety section of the current NVVP, this refers primarily to the targeted reduction in casualties for the year 2010.

The NVVP also mentions a number of matters about which the national government wants to make nationally applicable agreements with all the other parties. These include: facilitating in regard to information and financial resources, taking measures aimed at influencing traffic behaviour, making changes in infrastructure and essential criteria that the various kinds of roads have to meet, and monitoring and evaluating. Finally, the NVVP contains a list of certain measures that the national government will be engaging in itself. These include: improving driver training; new requirements for cyclists, lorries and delivery vans; extra police enforcement; reinforcing the ‘safety culture’ in transport companies; and making motorways safer.

Regional interpretation of the national objective

In discussions held among the national government, the provinces and the municipalities, the national safety objective for 2010 (30% fewer road deaths and 25% fewer injuries requiring hospital care) has been provisionally divided among the provinces. As soon as the NVVP is approved by the parliament, regional policy preparation will get under way. The first objective is that all the provinces formulate quantitative objectives for their road safety policy and that these objectives add up to achieve the national objective. Not only will this increase support within the region, but it will also give more credit to the national objective. In formulating their quantitative objectives, the regional governments will have to indicate the preliminary conditions (budget, manpower, organisation) necessary to meet the regional objectives. Each region will compile a general package of measures and will estimate the effects and costs for these measures. The result will indicate whether the region’s own resources will be sufficient or if a supplementary amount from the national government will be necessary. This process will be concluded with binding agreements between the national government and the provinces about the definitive regional objectives in connection with the preliminary conditions that need to be met. The national contribution for road safety will be transferred without any earmarking to each province into a general regional fund for traffic and transport policy. The national government has had instruments developed to facilitate this regional process, and SWOV is contributing its efforts to this.

Supporting decision-making in the region

Within the framework of the SWOV’s feasibility study into the NVVP’s national objective, a method was developed for estimating the effects and costs of all the measures including both national and regional costs. A report on this appeared in Research Activities, number 16 (April 2001). Based on these findings and existing knowledge, the national government and SWOV developed a manual for measures (the Measure Guide) that the regions can use when drawing up their Provincial Traffic and Transport Plans.

SWOV has improved the method developed from the national study and interpreted it for use at the regional level. The method is intended to help the provinces answer the following questions:

Finally, the provinces themselves must assess how well their regional package of measures can be carried out by considering the time it takes to complete the measures, the availability of manpower, etc.

Initially, SWOV will be conducting its calculations by means of the calculation modules it developed, but efforts will also be devoted to giving the regions themselves the opportunity to make use of these. This would make it easier for them to draw up and test alternative scenarios.

In conclusion

Preparing the regional road safety policy is now under way. All the provinces have chosen to make use of the SWOV method. A major advantage to this is that the findings from all the regions can be compared. It is expected that this will facilitate the discussion in the regions about the composition of the general package of measures and that better insight into the feasibility of the regional objectives will be obtained. At the same time, a shared basis will be laid for agreements with the national government about these objectives and the resources needed to achieve them. These agreements will have to be made during the spring of 2002.

Once this process is completed, SWOV will continue to work on improvements and making the decision-support system suitable for more applications.

SWOV Research Activities 18 - November 2001

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