Causes and Consequences of Road Traffic Crashes in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Strategies for Injury Reduction
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This item was submitted to Loughborough’s Institutional Repository (https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/) by the author and is made available under the following Creative Commons Licence conditions. For the full text of this licence, please go to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ Causes and Consequences of Road Traffic Crashes in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Strategies for Injury Reduction By Mostapha K. Al Dah Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University February 2010 © by M. K. Al Dah 2010 Abstract This thesis looked at traffic crashes in the emirate of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to establish the current situation in road safety and ways of improving it. A global overview of road safety literature revealed that standards of road safety vary widely by region. Key indicators like fatality rate and risk (Jacobs et al, 2000) were found to be higher in most neighbouring Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries (10-25 fatalities/100,000 pop., 3-5 fatalities/10,000 motor vehicles) than in the best-performing Western countries (6 fatalities/100,000 pop., 1 fatality/10,000 motor vehicles). Interventions and countermeasures to tackle specific road safety issues were reviewed from international studies. Countermeasures were chosen with consideration for the local situation in Dubai within the categories of Human, Environmental and Vehicle factors. Examples of selected measures include offending driver punishment (Human), Electronic Stability Control (Vehicle) and central barriers (Environment). These measures were mostly studied in different environments to those in Dubai so the aspect of knowledge transfer between areas of different cultural and environmental conditions was discussed. Data from real world injury crashes (as collected by Dubai Police and the Roads & Transport Authority) over twelve years (1995 – 2006) were subject to macroanalysis in SPSS to identify the main issues over the past decade. 18,142 crashes involving 30,942 casualties and 48,960 vehicles were analysed at the outset. The following issues were among the main concerns: - High proportion of fatal crashes out of all injury crashes (13.5% compared to 1.4% in the UK); - Most fatal crashes involved a single vehicle hitting a pedestrian; - Most injury crashes involved a single vehicle; - Inconsiderate driving was the most common crash cause cited by the police. Countermeasures found in the literature to counteract these problems were then suggested for application and the estimated savings from applying them were calculated. Savings were quantified as either reductions in casualties or injury crashes. Furthermore, cost savings for the calculated reductions were estimated using existing UK crash costs due to the scarcity of UAE crash cost estimates. Calculation of the estimated improvement in safety if these 1 countermeasures were applied retrospectively meant a reduction of 4,634 injury crashes and 1,555 casualties over the 12-year period with an estimated cost saving of approximately £368 million or 2.7 billion Dirhams. To refine this method more detailed data on crashes were required and collected from the dedicated crash investigation team files in Dubai Police for 2006 and part of 2007. This new dataset (300 crashes) was put into a purpose- built database with over 140 fields and subject to microanalysis to more accurately match the problems and interventions. Six interventions were matched to individual cases in the database where they would have positively altered the outcome. This process was verified by independent crash experts and investigators. The benefits from these six countermeasures were then weighted to calculate the benefits for the whole crash population over a year. Examples of specific interventions included guardrails along the roadside; grade-separated crossing facilities for pedestrians; Electronic Stability Control and speed cameras. The estimated total reduction in crashes was 2,412 annually with calculated savings of £40 million or 280 million Dirhams. This was the first time this geographical area was studied in such depth and detail to allow the calculation of benefits from interventions matched to known road safety issues. Various limitations were encountered such as the unavailability of GIS basemaps and the continuously changing infrastructure and population of Dubai. Numerous areas of further work were identified. Such work areas include hospital studies for collecting injury data to compare with police data; changing vehicle standards so that they are better suited to local crash types; the calculation of crash and injury costs based on local figures; vehicle fleet analysis for comparing different vehicle segments and exposure; and improved data collection and storage methods. Keywords: Crashes; Accidents; Traffic; Road Safety; UAE; Dubai; Strategy; Pedestrian Safety; Vehicle Safety; Speeding; Injury Prevention 2 "Do not kill yourselves nor kill one another. Surely, Allah is Most Merciful to you" Surah An-Nisa (4:29), The Holy Quran. 3 To the family who backed me all the way. 4 Acknowledgements Grateful thanks are due to a number of people and organisations that have made this work possible; below are some of them: My family and friends. Dr Richard Frampton, Dr Andrew Morris, Prof. Pete Thomas, John Richardson, Khalfan Al-Barwani, Mirza Abdullah Baig, Noushad Veettil, Mohammad Ibdah, Bader Al-Siri, Dr Salem Al-Shafei, Major Khalid Kinsham, Major Esam Al-Awar, Abdullah Bin Ghalib, Dr Yasser Hawas, Dr Sulaiman Ashur, Dr Mohammed El- Sadig. Lamya Kajoor, Moza Al Yoha, Mike Hardman, Abdulrahman Al Mubarak. Pete Paynton, Mohamed Hassan Al-Ali, Ahmed Al-Haj, Hisham Al-Eisa, Abdulaziz Al-Shemmari, Ahmad Yousef, Mohammed Ibrahim, Jasim Mohammad, Hassan Al Zaabi, Abdullah Al Bulooshi, Ibrahim Murad, Hassan Mohammed Rostom, Dine Pinpin, Dr Sharif Al-Lahham, Dr Dilip DaCruz, Dr Fayez Al-Shamsi. Roads & Transport Authority, Dubai, UAE. Accident Investigation Section, Dubai Police Traffic Administration, UAE. UAE University Roadway, Traffic & Transport Safety Research Centre, UAE. Statistics Centre of Dubai, UAE. Dubai Met Office, Dept. of Civil Aviation, UAE. Dubai Department of Tourism & Commerce Marketing, UAE. Dubai Public Prosecution Dept., UAE. Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, UAE Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre, UAE. Dubai Ambulance Services Centre, UAE. Ministry of Interior, UAE. Easy Map Advertising, Dubai, UAE. Loughborough University, UK. Nottinghamshire Police, UK. Department for Transport, UK. Belhane Mapping, Germany. 5 Table of Contents Abstract ...........................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements .........................................................................................5 Chapter 1 Global Assessment of Road Traffic Injuries ..............................15 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................15 1.2 Human tolerance to injury ................................................................15 1.3 Describing the problem of road safety on a global scale..................16 1.4 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study............................................18 1.4.1 GBD shortcomings......................................................................19 1.5 The multiple dimensions to the problem...........................................19 1.5.1 High economic costs...................................................................19 1.6 Regional divisions and estimates of road crashes & injuries............ 21 1.6.1 Problems with global figures.......................................................21 1.6.2 Economic cost estimates in HMCs .............................................22 1.6.3 Economic cost estimates in LMCs..............................................23 1.7 Comparing fatality rate and fatality risk ............................................24 1.8 Summary..........................................................................................28 Chapter 2 The Road Safety Situation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) ...............................................................................................30 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................30 2.2 Aims and intended outcomes of the study .......................................31 2.3 Background to the road safety situation...........................................32 2.4 Road safety studies on the UAE ......................................................40 2.4.1 Introduction.................................................................................40 2.4.2 Unpublished studies ...................................................................41 2.4.3 Published papers and journal articles .........................................43 2.5 Road safety in the regional context..................................................46 2.6 Overview of some local and national stakeholders in road safety....48 2.6.1 UAE Ministry of Interior...............................................................48 2.6.2 Emirates Authority for Standardization & Metrology (ESMA)...... 49 2.6.3 The Executive Council – Dubai...................................................49 2.6.4 Dubai Police ...............................................................................49 2.6.5 Dubai Health Authority (DHA).....................................................50 2.6.6