Assessment of Road Safety Challenge and Practice in Ambo City

Abstract

Road transport is one of the transport sectors that gives service for transportation of people and goods. As road transportation gives great advantage in Socio-economic of one’s country it is also capable of causing death of human life, injuries that last for life periods of time and property damage, if road safety principles are not implemented properly. Ambo town which is found in Oromia regional state, also experiences this road safety problem. The population, number of vehicle owners in the town, number of freight vehicles, and public transportation vehicles that pass through the town are increasing rapidly with an alarming rate of traffic accidents. There are no sufficient studies on road safety issues in the study area. But, different traffic accidents are happening in the study area frequently causing so many loss of life, injury and property damage. The aim of this study is to assess road safety challenges in the town with regard to human factor, road and environmental factor, institutional factor, vehicle factor, emergency response and law enforcement. Also, to develop a model for road safety challenges in order to determine their effect on road safety of the town. Descriptive research methodology was used to conduct the study. Purposive sampling and random sampling technique was used to take different samples. The population of the study were, officials of road transport authority, traffic police, hospital emergency officials, pedestrians and vehicle drivers. Methods of data collection such as structured questionnaires, one-on –one interview and observation was used. Descriptive and inferential statistics data analysis methods were used to analyze the data using SPSS software. Findings of the study reveals that there were poor road safety practices in Ambo town. The top three road safety challenges were Human factor (RII=0.891) which was the most leading group factor of road safety challenges in the town followed by Road and Environmental factor (RII=0.883) and vehicle factor (RII=0.850). There were positive and significant correlations between human factor, road and environmental factor, institutional factor, vehicle factor, emergency response and law enforcement. The predictors had a negative and significant effect on road safety. Among those human factors had a greater negative effect on road safety.