Development of a Road Transportation Risks Data Base for Italy: Methodology, Models and Results

Abstract

Transportation risks are increasing in importance due to the today mobility demand (which implies about 6500 fatalities per year in Italy due to road accidents and a valuable air pollution) and the transportation of dangerous substances (which implies hazards such as spills and other major accidents). Consequently, the risk assessment for road transport is a crucial point for analysts, decision makers and planners. Quite often, general data, such as accident frequencies relevant to the whole country and to the entire road system are used. For example, in Italy data like 10^-7 eventsIkm are quoted in relation to truck accidents: although reasonable, this data can be substituted with more detailed ones. Moreover, quite often data as number of accidents or fatalities per year, per day hour, per driver age, etc., are considered, instead of the more significant “per km” data, which are not directly available from basic accident data collection. It is apparent, indeed, that in order to compute the accident probability relevant to a given vehicle type, road, location, time, etc., the frequencies of accident per kilometre done by the vehicle are required. In order to provide proper information, a detailed data base for road risk assessment in Italy has been developed and some results are presented below.