Road Safety Performance Evaluation and Policy Making by Data Envelopment Analysis: a Case Study of Provincial Data in Iran

Considering the need to invest on road safety programs, an efficiency analysis on the implemented countermeasures is required. The system presented in this study is designed to evaluate the efficiency related to the measures annually implemented throughout 30 provinces of Iran in two years 2008 and 2009. The model calculates a relative inefficiency index for each province and in each year, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. Each province in each year is defined as a decision making unit (DMU) in DEA analysis. The inefficiency index is defined as the proportion of weighted sum of road fatality risk indices to the weighted sum of road safety performance indicators. The inefficiency rate for each DMU must be minimized by either decreased fatality indices and/or increased safety measures to an optimal extent. Using a dual model of the main DEA model for each DMU, a target setting task can be conducted by identifying the benchmarks as the leading entities. Moreover, some discussions are provided for the results concerning the efficient units and two-year comparison analyses.