evaluation of road traffic police efficiency in Greece

1. evaluation of road traffic police efficiency in Greece M.Doumpos, S.Koutsogiannopoulos, C.Zopounidis, Μ.Nikolarakis Technical University of Crete Financial Engineering Laboratory

2. Road safety: Statistical data World Health Organization (2004) • More that 1,180,000 deaths worldwide (2002) • 2nd most important risk factor in the ages 5-44 (11th overall) • A 30% decrease in deaths is expected for the developed countries, but with a significant increase in lower-income countries • DALY (disability-adjusted life years): • 1990: 11thmost important cause • 2020 (forecast): 3rdleading cause Peden, Μ., Scurfield, R., Sleet, D., Mohan, D., Hyder, A.A., Jarawan, E. and Mathers, C. (2004), World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva.

3. Statistics for Greece Deaths Deadly accidents

4. Contributing factors • Rapid growth in road transports • Increase in the number of high-risk vehicles (cars & motorcycles) • The risk of death for a biker is 220 times higher than that of a bus passenger • The risk for a car passenger is 10 higher • Drivers’ behavior and conditions • Vehicles’ conditions • Road conditions • Weather conditions

5. Statistics (traffic violations)

6. Measures and policies • Promotion of public transport means • Improvement of road conditions • Design of safer vehicles • Education on road safety • Adaptation/improvement of traffic rules • Policing • Widely used measure • Questions on the efficiency and the true goals of policing • Prevention vs imposing penalties (traffic tickets)

7. Road traffic police efficiency • Road traffic policing should be designed, implemented and evaluated in accordance with the risk of traffic accidents • A simple calculation of the correlation between traffic accidents and policing is not enough • A definition of efficiency is needed together with a methodology to measure it Data envelopment analysis

8. Data envelopment analysis • Evaluation of the efficiency of operating units • Outputs / Inputs • Identification of efficient and inefficient units • Specification of the main sources of inefficiency • Internal factors or external conditions • Similar applications • Efficiency of police departments • Thanassoulis (1995): UK • Sun (2002): Taiwan • Drake & Simper (2005): UK • Garcia-Sanchez (2007): Spain

9. Methodology and data • Output oriented data envelopment analysis • Inputs: traffic accidents • Outputs: traffic violations • Efficiency • Traffic violations / Traffic accidents • Data for all the 51 prefectures in Greece • Period 1999 – 2005

10. Inputs • Basic traffic accidents data • Deadly accidents • Accidents with severe injuries • Accidents with minor injuries • Deaths • Severe injuries • Minor injuries • Prefectures’ data • Population • Number of vehicles • Length of road network 18 inputs overall Deadly accidents / Vehicles Severe accidents / Road network Deaths / Population Minor injuries / Population

11. Outputs • Categories of traffic violations • Dangerous violations (DV) • Speeding, illegal passing, drunk driving, priority, etc. • Regulatory violations (RV) • Driving without seat belt/helmet, license, etc. • Vehicles (VEH) • Weight, lights, noise, etc. • Prefectures’ data • Population (P) • Number of vehicles (N) • Length of road network (L) 9 outputs overall DV / L RV / N VEH / N

12. Efficiency estimates

13. Changes over time Chania Kozani Thessaloniki Larissa Samos Chios

14. Analysis of inefficiencies • An operating unit can be inefficient due to any combination of: • Inefficient management (internal factors) • Disadvantageous exogenous conditions (external factors) • Data envelopment analysis provides two estimates: • Global technical efficiency (GTE): No scale effects (no external factors) • Local pure technical efficiency (LPTE): Inefficient utilization of inputs (poor management) • GTE  LPTE  1: inefficiency is mainly due to poor management • Karditsa, Larissa, Cyclades, Trikala, Drama, Serres, Elis • Local road traffic policing should be reconsidered • GTE LPTE  1: inefficiency is mainly due to disadvantageous exogenous conditions • Corinthia, Boeotia, Phthiotis • Improvements on the road network are needed • Returns to scale • In the vast majority of the cases, decreasing returns of scale were found • The potential of policing measures in reducing traffic accidents is finite (Drake & Simper, 2005)

15. Comparative analysis • Nikolarakis & Zopounidis (2007) performed two separate multicriteria evaluations • Prefectures’ risk of traffic accidents • Performance of road traffic polices (traffic violations recorded) • 4-group classification • High risk prefectures with many traffic violations • High risk prefectures with few traffic violations • Low risk prefectures with few traffic violations • Low risk prefectures with many traffic violations Nikolarakis, Μ. and Zopounidis, C. (2007), Analysis of Traffic Accidents in Greece, Klidarithmos Editions, Athens (in Greek).

16. Comparative analysis Many accidents - few violations Few accidents - few violations Many accidents - many violations Few accidents - many violations

17. Conclusions & perspectives • Non-statistical approach to the estimation of road traffic police efficiency • Sources of inefficiencies • Useful for designing policy measures • Future perspectives • Consideration of road traffic police sources (personnel, equipment, funding, etc.) • Local analysis (at the prefecture level) to identify specific problems and risk factors • Monitoring of the results of the measures taken, over time