Road accident analysis in Bangladesh using system based socio-technical approach

Abstract

Road traffic collisions are increasing at an alarming rate in Bangladesh. Many have caught the attention of the public, and the administration and government. In this study, the Accimap methodology is used to analyze five high-profile road traffic collisions from a sociotechnical point of view. These road accident case-studies differ in the context in which the accident occurred, type of collision, level of severity and traffic settings (e.g. highway or urban street) to represent an overall scenario of Bangladesh Road Safety System. Sociotechnical approaches have gained popularity in high income countries for investigating such incidents, but it is still very new to practitioners in low-income countries. The integrated framework provides an insight into the interactions between different levels of a studied system, and supports the development of recommendations that could mitigate or prevent the outcomes of such incidents in the future. In this research work, after evaluating a number of systems-based methodologies, Accimap approach has been selected to carry out the analysis of accident case-studies. Firstly, a generic Actor Map for Bangladesh Road Safety System has been generated which is then used as the basis to build Actor Map models as well as Accimaps for the selected road collision studies. To held aid in proper investigation, information regarding the accident events have been collected from popular media reports, accident investigation reports and local interviews. In this comparative analysis, most of the recommendations came from enforcement perspective and engineering recommendations ranked second but it does not indicate that reformations based on only enforcement and engineering will not bring positive changes rather all of these recommendations need to be implemented in synergy. It was also revealed that blaming a specific actor at the lower level of the system cannot help mitigate accidents, rather reformations in the whole sociotechnical system need to be made that go beyond the traditional three E’s of engineering, enforcement, and education. By integrating the different levels of the system, from international committees to end users, a systematic approach can be developed to improve road traffic collision analysis and reporting in Bangladesh. A systems-based accident analysis techniques although widely used in highincome developed countries, it is still very new in low-income developing countries like Bangladesh and has a promising aspect in alleviating the degraded road safety scenario.