Constructing road safety performance indicators using Fuzzy Delphi Method

and Grey Delphi Method

Zhuanglin Ma
a
, Chunfu Shao
b,
, Sheqiang Ma
c
, Zeng Ye
d
a
School of Automobile, Changan University, Xian 710064, China
b
MOE Key Laboratory for Urban Transportation Complex Systems Theory and Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
c
Trafc Management Engineering Department, Chinese Peoples Public Security University, Beijing 102623, China
d
Beijing Transportation Research Center, Beijing 100055, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Keywords:
Safety performance indicator
Fuzzy Delphi Method
Grey Delphi Method
Regional road safety
Urban road safety
Highway safety
a b s t r a c t
The main goal of this paper is to construct three sets of road safety performance indicators, which are
regional road safety performance indicators, urban road safety performance indicators and highway
safety performance indicators, respectively. Fuzzy Delphi Method and Grey Delphi Method are applied
to quantify experts attitudes to regional road safety, urban road safety and highway safety. Comparing
the results of two methods, the different results of two methods are analyzed, and then the nal safety
performance indicators are obtained by taking the intersection of results of two methods. Finally, three
sets of performance indicators are constructed, which can be described and evaluated the safety level of
region, urban road and highway, respectively. The research ndings show that the method used in this
paper is feasible and practical and can be provided as a reference for the administrative authority of road
safety.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Road safety management is an important means for forecasting
and preventing trafc accidents, and its core is the evaluation, fore-
cast and decision-making technique of road safety. Especially, road
safety evaluation is the foundation of safety management. In gen-
eral, the process of evaluation is made up of evaluation object,
evaluation indicator, weighting and evaluation model. In practice,
the process of weighting and evaluation model is always paid
much attention, but the selection of evaluation indicator is ignored.
In fact, it is very important to choose scientic and rational evalu-
ation indicators, which is the rst step to conduct evaluation and
the key problemconcerning the success or failure of the whole pro-
cess of evaluation. Therefore, howto establish a set of scientic and
rational road safety performance indicators is the key problem for
road safety management.
Many researchers have dedicated to the research of the macro
road safety model over 50 years, and these research results were
remarkable, such as Smeeds law (Smeed, 1949), Rumar descriptive
model (Rumar, 1987), Koornstras function (Koornstra, 1996), Na-
vin Model (Navin, Bergan, & Zhang, 1996) and Trinca model
(Trinca, 1988). These models were used to compare countries road
safety level by means of risk indicators, such as fatalities per vehi-
cles, fatalities per population, fatalities per vehicle kilometers or
the number of passenger miles. But some indirect inuence factors,
such as Socio-economic factor level and social medical condition,
have not been considered.
Some researchers established a comprehensive performance
indicators taking into account the impact of direct and indirect
inuence factors from the view of systems engineering. Al-haji
(2003) proposed a road safety development index (RSDI) allowing
comparison among nations and adopted a framework used to de-
velop a human development index (HDI), which included nine ba-
sic dimensions with 14 indicators and averaged them to produce
the RSDI. Fu and Fang (2006) proposed highway network safety
performance indicators, which included ve basic dimensions with
13 relative indicators. Wu, Liu, and Xiao (2006) proposed freeway
safety performance indicators, which included three basic dimen-
sions with 11 indicators. Ma, Sun, and Han (2008) proposed urban
road safety performance indicators, which included three basic
dimensions with 11 indicators. Above all, these safety performance
indicators have overcome the deciency of indicators which were
considered from the aspect of accidents, and have made great pro-
gress. But the present researches do not specify the detailed pro-
cess of constructing road performance indicators and why those
indicators are selected.
Delphi Method was widely applied to select performance indi-
cators in many elds, but it requires multiple investigations to
achieve the consistency of expert opinions and experts are
required and forced to modify their opinions so as to meet the
mean value of all the expert opinions. However, Fuzzy Delphi
0957-4174/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2010.07.062

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mazhuanglin@126.com (Z. Ma), cfshao@bjtu.edu.cn (C. Shao).
Expert Systems with Applications 38 (2011) 15091514
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Expert Systems with Applications
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ eswa
Method requires only a small number of samples and the derived
results are objective and reasonable. Not only it saves time and
cost required for collecting expert opinions but also experts opin-
ions will also be sufciently expressed without being distorted
(Hsu & Yang, 2000; Ishikawa et al., 1993; Kuo & Chen, 2008; Murry,
Pipino, & Gigch, 1985). Furthermore, grey system theory also can
deal with uncertain, hazy and incomplete data (Liu, Dang, & Fang,
2004). Grey whitening weight function can be described evaluation
objects belonging to the degree of a certain grey class, and it has
been widely used (Li, Wang, & An, 2008; Shao, Tang, & Bai, 2003;
Xie & Pan, 2007). Therefore, two kinds of methods are used to lter
road safety performance indicators, which are Fuzzy Delphi Meth-
od and Grey Delphi Method, respectively.
The main goal of this paper is to construct three sets of road
safety performance indicators, which are regional road safety per-
formance indicators, urban road safety performance indicators and
highway safety performance indicators, respectively. Through Fuz-
zy Delphi Method and Grey Delphi Method, the importance of indi-
cators can be derived. The comparative analysis on the results of
two methods was carried out, and then three sets of road safety
performance indicators could be constructed. The research results
can be provided as a reference for the administrative authority of
road safety.
2. Methodology
In order to simplify the process of survey, three primary road
safety performance indicators from the region, the urban road and
the highway were proposed with reference to the related litera-
tures. They are summarized in Appendices A, B and C, respectively.
Based on three primary road safety performance indicators, the
questionnaire was designed. A panel of 15 members from universi-
ties and research institutions was formed. The importance of road
safety performance indicators was divided into ve grades, and
ve-point Likert scales, ranging from ve, very important to one,
not very important were used for scoring of each indicator. At last,
a total of 15 questionnaires (one for each expert) were distributed,
and 13 returned were valid. The valid response rate was 86.7%.
2.1. Fuzzy Delphi Method
The Delphi Method was rst developed by Dalkey and Helmer
(1963) in corporation and has been widely applied in many man-
agement areas, e.g. forecasting, public policy analysis and project
planning. However, the traditional Delphi Method also has some
disadvantages, such as low convergence expert opinions, high exe-
cution cost, the possibility of ltering out particular expert opin-
ions, and so on. Therefore, Murry et al. (1985) proposed the
concept of integrating the traditional Delphi Method and the fuzzy
theory to improve the vagueness of the Delphi Method. Member-
ship degree is used to establish the membership function of each
participant. Ishikawa et al. (1993) further introduced the fuzzy the-
ory into the Delphi Method and developed maxmin and fuzzy
integration algorithms to predict the prevalence of computers in
the future. But the limitation of this method is only applicable to
predict time series data. Hsu and Yang (2000) applied triangular
fuzzy number to encompass expert opinions and establish the Fuz-
zy Delphi Method. The max and min value of expert opinions are
taken as the two terminal points of triangular fuzzy numbers,
and the geometric mean is taken as the membership degree of tri-
angular fuzzy numbers to derive the statistical unbiased effect and
avoid the impact of extreme values. The advantage of this method
is simplicity that all the expert opinions can be encompassed in
one investigation. As a result, this method may create a better ef-
fect of criteria selection. Kuo and Chen (2008) summarized advan-
tages of the Fuzzy Delphi Method, and applied it to construct key
performance appraisal indicators for mobility of the service
industries.
In this paper, the Fuzzy Delphi Method proposed by Hsu and
Yang (2000) was adopted in the process of the selection of road
safety performance indicators. Geometric means are used to de-
note experts consensus in this paper, and the process is demon-
strated as follows:
(1) Experts opinions were collected from questionnaires, and
questionnaires were dealt with. At the same time, the trian-
gular fuzzy numbers ea
i
were created, which were shown as
follows:
e
a
i
a
i
; d
i
; c
i
;
a
i
minB
ij
;
d
i

Y
n
k1
B
ij
!
1=n
;
c
i
maxB
ij
;
where i is the number of indicators; j is the number of ex-
perts; a
i
is the bottom of all the experts evaluation value
for indicator i; d
i
is the geometric mean of all the experts
evaluation value for indicator i; c
i
is the ceiling of all the ex-
perts evaluation value for indicator i; B
ij
is the evaluation va-
lue of the jth expert for indicator i.
(2) Selection of performance indicators.
In this paper, the geometric mean d
i
of each indicators triangu-
lar fuzzy number was used to denote the consensus of the expert
group on the indicators evaluation value, so that the impact of ex-
treme values could be avoided. The threshold value r was deter-
mined. If d
i
is no less than r, indicator i is accepted, and vice versa.
2.2. Grey Delphi Method
Grey Delphi Method is the integration of grey system theory
and Delphi Method, which uses grey whitening weight function
based on Delphi questionnaires to select evaluation indicators.
The process of Grey Delphi Method was as follows.
Step 1. According to the evaluation requirement, s grey classes
were developed and the selection range of value of indicator j
a
1
j
; b
s
j
was divided into k grey classes.
Step 2. For k = 1 and s, half trapezoidal whitening weight func-
tion was used. The formations were as follows.
f
1
j
x
1; x 6 a
1
j
;
b
1
j
x
b
1
j
a
1
j
; a
1
j
< x 6 b
1
j
;
x > b
1
j
;
8
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
:
1
f
s
j
x
0; x < a
s
j
;
xa
s
j
b
s
j
a
s
j
; a
s
j
6 x < b
s
j
;
1; x Pb
s
j
:
8
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
:
2
For k = m (m = 2, 3, . . . , s 1), triangular whitening weight func-
tion was used. The formation was as follows:
f
k
j
x
0; x R a
k
j
; b
k
j
;
xa
k
j
k
k
j
a
k
j
; x 2 a
k
j
; k
k
j
;
b
k
j
x
b
k
j
k
k
j
; x 2 k
k
j
; b
k
j
;
8
>
>
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
>
>
:
3
1510 Z. Ma et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 38 (2011) 15091514
where k
k
j
a
k
j
b
k
j
=2. The starting point a
k
j
is the lower bound-
aries of the kth grey class; the end point b
k
j
is the upper bound-
aries of the kth grey class.
Step 3. The synthetic clustering coefcient r
k
j
was calculated,
and the formation was as follows.
r
k
j

X
m
l1
f
k
j
x g
l
j
;
where f
k
j
x is the whitening weight function of k grey class indica-
tor j; m is the number of categories of experts opinions; g
l
j
is the
weight of indicator j in the synthetic cluster, namely, the number
of experts opinions in category l.
Step 4. The decision vectors of evaluation indicators were iden-
tied. The criterion of max
16k6s
fr
k
j
g r
k

j
was used to judge
whether indicator j belongs to class k*.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Results of Fuzzy Delphi Method
In this paper, the threshold value r is set as 2.5. Then the selec-
tion criteria are as follows:
(1) If d
i
P2.5, this performance indicator is accepted.
(2) If d
i
P2.5, this performance indicator is rejected.
It can be seen from Appendix A that 16 indicators were retained
and 14 indicators were deleted. The retained indicators are mainly
attributed to regional road safety, which focus on four dimensions:
road user behaviour, vehicle safety, trafc risk and Socio-economic
factor. Road user behaviour includes driving license less than
3 years, drunken driving rate, overspeed rate and fatigue driving
rate. Vehicle safety includes the level of motorization, the growth
rate of vehicles and percentage of motorcycle. Trafc risk includes
accidents per 10,000 vehicles, fatalities per 10,000 vehicles, acci-
dents per 100,000 people, fatalities per 100,000 people, accidents
per 100 km, fatalities per 100 km and casualty rate. Socio-eco-
nomic factor includes GDP per capita and popularizing rate of traf-
c laws and trafc safety common sense.
It can be seen from Appendix B that 21 indicators were retained
and 12 indicators were deleted. The retained indicators are mainly
attributed to urban road safety, which focus on ve dimensions:
road user behaviour, vehicle safety, road situation, trafc risk and
Socio-economic factor. Road user behaviour includes driving li-
cense less than 3 years, drunken driving rate, overspeed rate, fati-
gue driving rate and laws broken by pedestrian at intersection.
Vehicle safety includes the level of motorization and percentage
of motorcycle. Road situation includes proportion of not lighting
section at night, proportion of channelized intersections, propor-
tion of signalized intersections, percentage of undivided roads
and number of days of adverse weather. Trafc risk includes acci-
dents per 10,000 vehicles, fatalities per 10,000 vehicles, accidents
per 100,000 people, fatalities per 100,000 people, accidents per
100 km, fatalities per 100 km and casualty rate. Socio-economic
factor includes percentage of oating population and popularizing
rate of trafc laws and trafc safety common sense.
It can be seen from Appendix C that 18 indicators were retained
and two indicators were deleted. The retained indicators are
mainly attributed to highway safety, which focus on four dimen-
sions: road user behaviour, road situation, trafc environment
and trafc facility. Road user behavior includes driving license less
than 3 years, drunken driving rate, overspeed rate, fatigue driving
rate and helmet wearing rate. Road situation includes proportion
of the radius of circular curve under ordinary value, percentage
of longitudinal grade above the maximum, proportion of shoulder
width under ordinary value, percentage of tunnel and bridge sec-
tions and percentage of sections at heavy hill area. Trafc environ-
ment includes degree of saturation, percentage of large vehicles,
stopping sight distance, over loading rate of heavy truck and num-
ber of days of adverse weather. Trafc facility includes perfect rate
of trafc sign, serviceability rate of trafc marking and trafc acci-
dent emergency rescue.
3.2. Results of Grey Delphi Method
In this paper, ve grey classes were selected, namely, s = 1, 2, 3,
4 and 5, which stands for not very important, no important, unde-
cided, important and very important, respectively. The range of
each grey class are [1, 2.5], [0.5, 3.5], [1.5, 4.5], [2.5, 5.5] and
[3.5, 5], respectively. Then the synthetic clustering coefcient r
k
j
could be calculated and the decision vectors of evaluation indica-
tors are obtained, which are shown in Appendices A, B and C,
respectively. The selection criteria are as follows:
(1) If class k* belong to class 4 and 5, namely, the value of clas-
ses of important or very important is the maximum in the
vector decision, this performance indicator is accepted.
(2) If the ratio of class k* attached to class 4 and 5 to class k*
attached to class 1 and 2 is more than 1, namely, classes of
important and very important account for an over 50%
degree except for class of undecided, this performance indi-
cator is accepted.
It can be seen from Appendix A that 13 indicators were retained
and 17 indicators were deleted. The retained indicators are mainly
attributed to regional road safety, which focus on four dimensions:
road user behaviour, vehicle safety, trafc risk and Socio-economic
factor. Road behavior includes driving license less than 3 years,
drunken driving rate, overspeed rate and fatigue driving rate. Vehi-
Table 1
Regional road safety performance indicators.
Fuzzy Delphi Method Grey Delphi Method The nal results
Road user behaviour
Driving license less than
3 years
Driving license less
than 3 years
Driving license less
than 3 years
Drunken driving rate Drunken driving rate Drunken driving rate
Overspeed rate Overspeed rate Overspeed rate
Fatigue driving rate Fatigue driving rate Fatigue driving rate
Vehicle safety
The level of motorization The level of
motorization
The level of
motorization
The growth rate of vehicles
Percentage of motorcycle
Trafc risk
Accidents per 10,000
vehicles
Accidents per 10,000
vehicles
Accidents per 10,000
vehicles
Fatalities per 10,000
vehicles
Fatalities per 10,000
vehicles
Fatalities per 10,000
vehicles
Accidents per 100,000
people
Accidents per
100,000 people
Accidents per
100,000 people
Fatalities per 100,000
people
Fatalities per 100,000
people
Fatalities per 100,000
people
Accidents per 100 km Accidents per 100 km Accidents per 100 km
Fatalities per 100 km Fatalities per 100 km Fatalities per 100 km
Casualty rate Casualty rate Casualty rate
Socio-economic factor
Popularizing rate of trafc
laws and trafc safety
common sense
Popularizing rate of
trafc laws and trafc
safety common sense
Popularizing rate of
trafc laws and trafc
safety common sense
GDP per capita
Z. Ma et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 38 (2011) 15091514 1511
cle safety includes the level of motorization. Trafc risk includes
accidents per 10,000 vehicles, fatalities per 10,000 vehicles, acci-
dents per 100,000 people, fatalities per 100,000 people, accidents
per 100 km, fatalities per 100 km and casualty rate. Socio-eco-
nomic factor includes popularizing rate of trafc laws and trafc
safety common sense.
It can be seen from Appendix B that 17 indicators were retained
and 16 indicators were deleted. The retained indicators are mainly
attributed to urban road safety, which focus on ve dimensions:
road user behaviour, trafc risk and Socio-economic factor. Road
user behaviour includes drunken driving rate, overspeed rate, fati-
gue driving rate and laws broken by pedestrian at intersection.
Vehicle safety includes percentage of motorcycle. Road situation
includes proportion of not lighting section at night, proportion of
channelized intersections, proportion of signalized intersections,
percentage of undivided roads and proportion of uncontrolled
intersections. Trafc risk includes accidents per 10,000 vehicles,
fatalities per 10,000 vehicles, accidents per 100,000 people, fatali-
ties per 100,000 people, fatalities per 100 km and casualty rate. So-
cio-economic factor includes popularizing rate of trafc laws and
trafc safety common sense.
It can be seen from Appendix C that 16 indicators were retained
and four indicators were deleted. The retained indicators are
mainly attributed to highway safety, which focus on four dimen-
sions: road user behaviour, road situation, trafc environment
and trafc facility. Road user behaviour includes driving license
less than 3 years, drunken driving rate, overspeed rate, fatigue
driving rate and helmet wearing rate. Road situation includes
proportion of the radius of circular curve under ordinary value,
percentage of longitudinal grade above the maximum and percent-
age of sections at heavy hill area. Trafc environment includes de-
gree of saturation, percentage of large vehicles, stopping sight
distance, over loading rate of heavy truck and number of days of
adverse weather. Trafc facility includes perfect rate of trafc sign,
serviceability rate of trafc marking and trafc accident emergency
rescue.
3.3. Comparison analysis
It is obvious that results of Fuzzy Delphi Method and Grey Del-
phi Method are different.
For regional road safety performance indicators, the number of
selected indicators using Fuzzy Delphi Method is more than Grey
Delphi Method. Three indicators, which are the growth rate of
vehicles, percentage of motorcycle and GDP per capita, are selected
by Fuzzy Delphi Method, but are not selected by Grey Delphi Meth-
od. Therefore, the nal regional road safety performance indicators
Table 2
Urban road safety performance indicators.
Fuzzy Delphi Method Grey Delphi Method The nal results
Road user behaviour
Driving license less than
3 years
Drunken driving rate Drunken driving rate
Drunken driving rate Overspeed rate Overspeed rate
Overspeed rate Fatigue driving rate Fatigue driving rate
Fatigue driving rate Laws broken by
pedestrian at
intersection
Laws broken by
pedestrian at
intersection
Laws broken by pedestrian
at intersection
Vehicle safety
The level of motorization Percentage of
motorcycle
Percentage of
motorcycle
Percentage of motorcycle
Road situation
Proportion of not lighting
section at night
Proportion of not
lighting section at
night
Proportion of not
lighting section at
night
Proportion of channelized
intersection
Proportion of
channelized
intersection
Proportion of
channelized
intersection
Proportion of signalized
intersection
Proportion of
signalized
intersection
Proportion of
signalized
intersection
Percentage of undivided
roads
Percentage of
undivided roads
Percentage of
undivided roads
Number of days of adverse
weather
Proportion of
uncontrolled
intersection
Trafc risk
Accidents per 10,000
vehicles
Accidents per 10,000
vehicles
Accidents per 10,000
vehicles
Fatalities per 10,000
vehicles
Fatalities per 10,000
vehicles
Fatalities per 10,000
vehicles
Accidents per 100,000
people
Accidents per
100,000 people
Accidents per
100,000 people
Fatalities per 100,000
people
Fatalities per 100,000
people
Fatalities per 100,000
people
Accidents per 100 km Fatalities per 100 km Accidents per 100 km
Fatalities per 100 km Casualty rate Fatalities per 100 km
Casualty rate Casualty rate
Socio-economic factor
Percentage of oating
population
Popularizing rate of
trafc laws and trafc
safety common sense
Popularizing rate of
trafc laws and trafc
safety common sense
Popularizing rate of trafc
laws and trafc safety
common sense
Table 3
Highway safety performance indicators.
Fuzzy Delphi Method Grey Delphi method The nal results
Road user behaviour
Driving license less
than 3 years
Driving license less
than 3 years
Driving license less
than 3 years
Drunken driving rate Drunken driving rate Drunken driving rate
Over speed rate Over speed rate Over speed rate
Fatigue driving rate Fatigue driving rate Fatigue driving rate
Helmet wearing rate Helmet wearing rate Helmet wearing rate
Road situation
Proportion of the radius
of circular curve
under ordinary value
Proportion of the radius
of circular curve under
ordinary value
Proportion of the radius
of circular curve under
ordinary value
Percentage of
longitudinal grade
above the maximum
Percentage of
longitudinal grade
above the maximum
Percentage of
longitudinal grade
above the maximum
Proportion of shoulder
width under
ordinary value
Proportion of sections
at heavy hill area
Percentage of sections
at heavy hill area
percentage of tunnel
and bridge sections
Proportion of sections
at heavy hill area
Trafc environment
Degree of saturation Degree of saturation Degree of saturation
Percentage of large
vehicles
Percentage of large
vehicles
Percentage of large
vehicles
Stopping sight distance Stopping sight distance Stopping sight distance
Over loading rate of
heavy truck
Over loading rate of
heavy truck
Over loading rate of
heavy truck
Number of days of
adverse weather
Number of days of
adverse weather
Number of days of
adverse weather
Trafc facility
Perfect rate of trafc
sign
Perfect rate of trafc
sign
Perfect rate of trafc
sign
Service ability rate of
trafc marking
Service ability rate of
trafc marking
Service ability rate of
trafc marking
Trafc accident
emergency rescue
Trafc accident
emergency rescue
Trafc accident
emergency rescue
1512 Z. Ma et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 38 (2011) 15091514
should be obtained by taking the intersection of results of two
methods, and the results are shown in Table 1.
It is very interesting that indicators related road situation are no
considered. This is probably because road situation is closely re-
lated to regional GDP. On the one hand, the increase of regional
GDP means that the investment on transport infrastructure will in-
crease, and then the length and grade of highway will increase cor-
respondingly. On the other hand, the increase of the length and
grade of highway will promote the development of regional trans-
port activity in turn, and then the development of regional
transport activity will provide a substantial foundation for the in-
crease of regional GDP. This conclusion is consistent with that of
a Chinese study (Xu, Li, & Yang, 2007).
For urban road safety performance indicators, the number of se-
lected indicators using Fuzzy Delphi Method is more than Grey
Delphi Method. Five indicators, which are driving license less than
3 years, the level of motorization, number of days of adverse
weather, accidents per 100 km and percentage of oating popula-
tion, are selected by Fuzzy Delphi Method, but are not selected
by Grey Delphi Method. At the same time, one indicator, which is
proportion of uncontrolled intersections, is selected by grey Delphi
Method, but is not selected by Fuzzy Delphi Method. Therefore, the
nal urban road safety performance indicators should be obtained
by taking the intersection of results of two methods, and the re-
sults are shown in Table 2.
For highway safety performance indicators, the number of se-
lected indicators using Fuzzy Delphi Method is more than Grey
Delphi Method. Two indicators, which are proportion of shoulder
width under ordinary value and percentage of tunnel and bridge
sections, are selected by Fuzzy Delphi Method, but are not selected
by Grey Delphi Method. Therefore, the nal highway safety perfor-
mance indicators should be obtained by taking the intersection of
results of two methods, and the results are shown in Table 3.
Table A1
Regional road safety performance indicators.
Indicators Triangular
fuzzy
number
Grey decision vector
Road user behaviour
Driving license less than
3 years
(3, 3.26, 5) (0, 3.33, 10.67, 5.67, 1.67)
Drunken driving rate (2, 3.97, 5) (0.33, 1.333, 3.67, 8.67, 6.33)
Overspeed rate (2, 3.77, 5) (0.33, 1.33, 4.67, 10.67, 4.33)
Fatigue driving rate (3, 4.24, 5) (0, 0.67, 3.67, 7.67, 7.67)
Seat belt wearing rates for
drivers and front passengers
(1, 1.87, 5) (5.67, 7.33, 5.2, 0.33)
Helmet wearing rate (1, 2.29, 4) (3.67, 5.7, 33.4, 0.67)
Vehicle safety
The level of motorization (1, 2.83, 4) (1.67, 4.33, 8.6, 1.33)
The growth rate of vehicles (1, 2.54, 5) (3.33, 5.33, 4.67, 5, 2.33)
Coaches per 1000 people (1, 1.97, 4) (5.8, 5.33, 2, 0.33)
Heavy truck per 1000 people (1, 2.18, 4) (4.67, 6.33, 4, 4.33, 1.33)
Percentage of motorcycle (1, 2.6, 4) (2.33, 6, 7.33, 4.67, 1)
Road situation
The length of freeway per
capita
(1, 1.85, 4) (6, 7.67, 3.67, 2.33, 0.67)
Percentage of high and sub-
high class pavement
(1, 2.3, 5) (3.67, 7, 6, 2.67, 1.33)
Percentage of freeways, rst
class roads and second class
roads
(1, 2.36, 5) (3.33, 8.33, 5.67, 2.33, 1.33)
Highway density (1, 2.27, 4) (3.33, 8.67, 6.67, 2.33, 0.33)
Congestion degree of freeway (1, 2.41, 4) (2.67, 7.33, 8, 3, 0.33)
Congestion degree of provincial
highway
(1, 2.49, 4) (2.33, 6.67, 8.67, 3.33, 0.33)
Trafc risk
Accidents per 10,000 vehicles (1, 3.33, 5) (1, 2, 6.67, 7.33, 3.67)
Fatalities per 10,000 vehicles (1, 3.16, 5) (1.33, 3, 6.67, 6.33, 3.3)
Accidents per 100,000 vehicles (1, 2.93, 5) (1.67, 4.33, 7.33, 4.67, 2.67)
Fatalities per 100,000 vehicles (1, 2.99, 5) (1.67, 4, 6.67, 5.33, 3)
Accidents per 100 km (1, 3.24, 5) (1.33, 2.33, 5.67, 8.33, 3.3)
Fatalities per 100 km (1, 3.38, 5) (1.33, 2.33, 4.67, 8.33, 3.33)
Casualty rate (1, 3.69, 5) (0, 2, 7.33, 7, 4.33)
Socio-economic factor
GDP per capita (1, 2.54, 5) (3.33, 5.33, 4.67, 5, 2.33)
Percentage of urban population (1, 2.08, 4) (4.33, 8.67, 5.67, 2, 0.33)
Highway turnover of passenger
trafc
(1, 2.17, 4) (4.6, 7.33, 3, 0.33)
Highway turnover of freight
trafc
(1, 2.34, 4) (3.67, 4.67, 6.67, 4.67, 1)
Popularizing rate of trafc laws
and trafc safety common
sense
(1, 3.77, 5) (1, 0.67, 3.33, 8.67, 6.33)
The number of beds in health
care per 1000 people
(1, 1.67, 4) (7.33, 6.33, 3, 2.33, 0.67)
Table A2
Urban road safety performance indicators.
Indicators Triangular
fuzzy
number
Grey decision vector
Road user behaviour
Driving license less than 3 years (1, 2.75, 5) (1.67, 5, 9, 4, 1.33)
Drunken driving rate (2, 3.67, 5) (0.33, 2, 5.67, 8.67, 4.33)
Overspeed rate (2, 3.47, 4) (0.33, 2.33, 7, 9.33, 67)
Fatigue driving rate (2, 3.45, 5) (1, 3.33, 4.33, 8, 4.33)
Seat belt wearing rates for
drivers and front passengers
(1, 2.04, 4) (4.67, 7.33, 6, 2.33, 0.33)
Helmet wearing rate (1, 2.22, 4) (4, 5.67, 6.67, 3.67, 0.67)
Laws broken by pedestrian at
intersection
(1, 3.45, 5) (1, 2, 6, 6, 5)
Vehicle safety
The level of motorization (1, 2.54, 4) (2.33, 6.33, 8, 4, 0.67)
The growth rate of vehicles (1, 2.38, 5) (3.33, 6.33, 6.67, 3, 1.33)
Qualication rate of vehicles
periodic survey
(1, 2.38, 5) (3.33, 6.33, 6.67, 3, 1.33)
Percentage of motorcycle (1, 2.87, 4) (2, 4.33, 6, 7, 2)
Road situation
Proportion of not lighting
section at night
(2, 3.04, 5) (1.5, 8, 5.33, 2)
Proportion of channelized
intersections
(1, 2.98, 5) (2, 4, 5, 7, 3)
Proportion of signalized
intersections
(1, 3.1, 5) (1.33, 3, 7, 7, 2.67)
Percentage of undivided roads (1, 2.97, 5) (2, 4.33, 5.33, 5.67, 3.33)
Percentage of expressways (1, 1.76, 4) (6.67, 7, 3.33, 2.33, 0.67)
Proportion of uncontrolled
intersection
(1, 2.47, 4) (3.33, 3.67, 6.67, 5.67, 1.33)
Percentage of speed limits roads (1, 2.17, 4) (4, 6, 7.3333, 3, 0.33)
Degree of saturation of
expressway
(1, 2.34, 4) (3.33, 6.33, 7, 3, 0.67)
Degree of saturation of arterial
roads
(1, 2.49, 5) (3.33, 5.67, 5.33, 4.33, 2)
Density of road network (1, 1.93, 4) (5.33, 6.67, 5.67, 2.33, 0.33)
Number of days of adverse
weather
(1, 2.63, 4) (2.67, 6, 5.33, 5.67, 1.67)
Trafc risk
Accidents per 10,000 vehicles (1, 3.39, 5) (1, 2, 6.33, 6.67, 4.33)
Fatalities per 10,000 vehicles (1, 2.9, 5) (2.33, 3, 5.67, 6, 3.33)
Accidents per 100,000 people (1, 2.73, 5) (2.33, 3.67, 7.33, 5.33, 2)
Fatalities per 100,000 people (1, 2.97, 5) (2.33, 2.67, 5, 6.67, 3.67)
Accidents per 100 km (1, 2.73, 5) (2, 5.33, 7.67, 4.33, 1.67)
Fatalities per 100 km (1, 2.81, 5) (2.67, 3.67, 5, 5.67, 3.33)
Casualty rate (2, 3.75, 5) (0.33, 1.67, 5, 9.33, 4.67)
Socio-ecomic factor
GDP per capita (1, 1.89, 5) (6.33, 1.67, 5, 9.33, 4.67)
Percentage of oating
population
(1, 2.52, 4) (3, 5, 6.33, 5.33, 1.33)
Popularizing rate of trafc laws
and trafc safety common
sense
(1, 2.94, 5) (3, 1.33, 3.33, 8, 4.33)
The number of beds in health
care per 1000 people
(1, 1.7, 5) (7.33, 6.33, 2.67, 1.67, 1.33)
Z. Ma et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 38 (2011) 15091514 1513
4. Conclusions
This paper explored the application of Fuzzy Delphi Method and
Grey Delphi Method to quantify experts attitudes to regional road
safety, urban road safety and highway safety. Possible factors im-
pacted regional road safety, urban road safety and highway safety
are considered. Then, safety performance indicators are selected
using Fuzzy Delphi Method and Grey Delphi Method, respectively.
Comparing the results of two methods, the different results of two
methods are analyzed, and then the nal safety performance indi-
cators are obtained by taking the intersection of results of two
methods. Finally, three sets of performance indicators are con-
structed, which can be described and evaluated the safety level
of region, urban road and highway, respectively.
It can be discovered that some indicators were deleted. The
main reason is that investigated experts had different focuses on
the safety evaluation. This paper proposed three sets of primary
performance indicators based on literature reviews in advance,
which cover inuencing factors on safety as much as possible. Be-
sides, due to insufcient human resource and other objective fac-
tors, some biases of the survey results could still exist. However,
these biases impacted on the results are too insignicant to men-
tion and can be ignored. Therefore, the results in this paper are fea-
sible and practical and can be provided as a reference for the
administrative authority of road safety.
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by the research projects sponsored by
National Key Technology R&D Program of the Peoples Republic of
China (No. 2007BAK35B06) and Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 50878026).
Appendix A
See Table A1.
Appendix B
See Table A2.
Appendix C
See Table A3.
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Table A3
Highway safety performance indicators.
Indicators Triangular
fuzzy
number
Grey decision vector
Road user behaviour
Driving license less than 3
years
(2, 3.13, 5) (0.67, 4.33, 8.67, 5.67, 2)
Drunken driving rate (2, 3.91, 5) (0.33, 1.33, 4, 9.33, 5.67)
Overspeed rate (2, 3.77, 5) (0.33, 1.33, 4.67, 10.67, 4.33)
Fatigue driving rate (1, 3.53, 5) (1.33, 1.33, 3.33, 9.67, 5)
Seat belt wearing rates for
drivers and front passengers
(1, 2.22, 4) (4, 5.67, 6.67, 3.67, 0.67)
Helmet wearing rate (1, 2.8, 4) (2.33, 3, 6.33, 7.33, 2)
Road situation
Proportion of the radius of
circular curve under
ordinary value
(2, 3.12, 4) (1, 4.33, 7, 7.33, 2)
Percentage of longitudinal
grade above the maximum
(2, 3.01, 5) (1.33, 5.33, 6.67, 5.67, 2.33)
Proportion of shoulder width
under ordinary value
(2, 2.74, 4) (1.67, 6.67, 7.67, 4.67, 1)
Percentage of tunnel and
bridge sections
(1, 2.45, 5) (3, 5.67, 7.33, 3.33, 1.33)
Percentage of sections at heavy
hill area
(1, 2.79, 5) (3, 4, 3.67, 6, 3.67)
Trafc environment
Degree of saturation (2, 3.15, 4) (0.67, 4, 8.33, 7, 1.67)
Percentage of large vehicles (1, 3.01, 5) (1.67, 3.67, 6.33, 6.67, 2.67)
Design speed (1, 2.34, 4) (3, 8, 7.33, 2.67, 0.33)
Stopping sight distance (1, 2.77, 5) (2.33, 5.33, 5.67, 5.33, 2.33)
Overloading rate of heavy
truck
(3, 4.24, 5) (0, 0.67, 3.67, 7.67, 7.67)
Number of days of adverse
weather
(2, 3.08, 5) (1.33, 5, 6, 6.33, 2.67)
Trafc facility
Perfect rate of trafc sign (1, 2.94, 5) (1.67, 4, 7, 6, 2.33)
Serviceability rate of trafc
marking
(1, 3.13, 5) (6.67, 4.33, 8.67, 8.67, 2)
Trafc accident emergency
rescue
(1, 3.24, 5) (1.33, 2.33, 5.67, 8.33, 3.33)
1514 Z. Ma et al. / Expert Systems with Applications 38 (2011) 15091514