Investigating the Effect of Transportation Development Indicators on Road Traffic Casualties

The number of decedents of road accidents within a year in Iran is equal to the population of one or some small cities. In these accidents, besides losing a large number of people and occurring serious injuries and disabilities for many individuals, other negative economic, social and psychological consequences will happen. Considering the frequency and the intensity of accidents occurred in Iran’s road transportation, thisstudy investigated the effect of transportation development indicators on frequency of road accidents in provinces of Iran.
It was a descriptive-analytical and a practical study. It investigated Iran’s provinces’ conditions with regard to transportation indicators applying the composite indicators of development and deprivation. Moreover, the effects of these indicators on road accidents variables such as the number of the dead and injuries were studied using Pearson correlation coefficient and Regression analysis.
The results showed that the provinces of Tehran, Isfahan and Mazandaran have better conditions in respect of indicators of road transportation development and the provinces of Ardebil, Sistan & Baluchestan and Southern Khorasan are less developed. More than 50% of changes in variable “Number of dead people” and more than 85% of changes in variable “Number of injured people” caused by road accidents were determined by linear combination of indicators under study. Moreover, those provinces with a high demand rate of transportation have less favorable conditions with regard to traffic safety.
Indicators regarding demand for travel such as ‘transportation companies and institutions’, ‘safety’ and “transportation of passengers and goods” have a significant effect on accident casualties. In fact, more demand for travel leads to more risky behavior exhibition by drivers which, along with the poor quality of road safety lead to more road casualties.