Road Safety Investment: A Step to Achieve the Decade of Action on Road Safety Goal in Thailand

บทคัดย่อ

Objective:To quantify the public investments on road safety in Thailand from 2007 to 2011 by the fve strategies (education, engineering, enforcement, evaluation and emergency medical service) recommended to be the most important keys for achieving the decade of road safety goal. Methods:The government budget documents of 2007 to 2011 were reviewed. Five ministries and two public funds were identifed as having budget related to road safety goal. Each budget line from the fve ministries was classifed into investment in any of the five strategies. The public funds participated in the questionnaire survey giving details of spending to the fve strategies over the fve-year period. In-depth interviews were used in situations where opinions of either policy makers or a group of experts were needed. Findings: Over fve years, the investment in road safety was 89 billion baht in nominal term. Half of this was used in engineering strategy, 23% to enforcement, 12% to emergency medical service, 8% to evaluation and 7% to education. Policy makers and road safety experts agreed that lack of data and information in Thailand was one of the main obstacles to achieve the road safety goal in the near future. Conclusion:Since there are insuffcient data and evidences to determine the consequences of road safety policy and programs, it is not clear to conclude that Thailand has inadequately invested in road safety programs. However, the evidence confirms a low investment in road safety interventions comparing with developed countries. Systematic data management and research on cost-effectiveness are required to fulfill the information and knowledge gaps.