New Concepts in Spain's National Roads Safety Improvement Programs : Toward Enhanced Effectiveness

Abstract

Spain’s National Road Network includes more than 22,500 km of motorways, “autovias”1 and conventional roads. Annual traffic exceeds 80,000 million vehiclekilometers, 35% of the nation’s road traffic including urban traffic and more than 54% of interurban traffic. In the last years, construction of new infrastructures along with specific road safety programs has substantially contributed to a steady decline in accident figures. The number of personal injury accidents that occurred in the network during 1995 decreased by more than 7,000 compared to the figure of 1989, a reduction of more than 30%. Taking into account traffic growth, the risk of suffering a personal injury accident in the National Road Network has declined 49% from 1989 to 1995, as the accident rate (injury accidents per 100 million vehicle-km) diminished from 40.3 to 20.3. Equally, fatality risk has decreased 51%, fatality rate (number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle- km) having dropped from 5.1 to 2.5. Table 1 shows the evolution of accident rates between 1989 and 1995.