Investigating Causality between Road Safety and Environmental, Engineering and Technical Factors of Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the causality between road safety, environmental factors, engineering and technical factors with the focus in the road transportation sector of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Although majority of road accidents leading to injuries, deaths and loss of property are related to poor engineering standards followed during the construction of roads, that is not the case in the modern world where advanced technologies are used in designing, drawing and simulating roads before they are constructed to ensure they meet safety standards. Even with all these, accidents are still witnessed in the KSA and across the world, which begged for the need to explore other factors that might have been leading to the increased accidents. For the purposes of this study, weather conditions such as temperature and rainfall, carbon cost as an environmental factor as well as road accident factors such as ca deaths injuries and losses of properties were considered together with the rate of road safety. The analysis on the time series data using Vector Error Correction Model showed that these weather, environmental and road accident factors have significant effects in the rate of road safety in the KSA. The regression analysis showed important impact. The study concluded that apart from engineering standards that improve every day, other factors such as weather conditions, environmental factors and road accident factors should be managed to achieve the overall road safety. The findings of this study are valuable for future researchers in the context of road infrastructure development, control and management of road safety to reduce accidents, deaths, injuries and loss of property. The research has also provided valuable information that can be used by the KSA government and legislatures to develop more robust road safety measures.