Evaluating the Impact of Increased Fuel Cost and Iran’s Currency Devaluation on Road Traffic Volume and Offenses in Iran, 2011–2019

Abstract

Trends and underlying patterns should be identified in the timely distribution of road traffic offenses to increase traffic safety. In this study, a time series analysis was used to study the incidence rate of road traffic violations on Iranian rural roads. Road traffic volume and offenses data from March 2011 to October 2019 were aggregated. Interrupted time series were used to evaluate the impact of increasing fuel cost in June of 2013 and July of 2014 and the currency devaluation of Rial vs. US dollars in July of 2017 on trends and patterns, traffic volume, and number of offenses. A change-point detection (CPD) analysis was also used to identify singular changes in the frequency of traffic offenses. Results show a general decline in the number of overtaking and speeding offenses of −24.31% and −13.23%, respectively, due to the first increase in fuel cost. The second increase only reduced overtaking by 20.97%. In addition, Iran’s currency devaluation reduced the number of overtaking offenses by 26.39%. Modeling a change-point detection and a Mann-Kendall Test of traffic offenses in Iran, it was found that the burden of violations was reduced.

Investigation of the Hourly and Spatial Patterns of Traffic Offenses During March-April 2019 in Iran Using Bivariate Generalized Additive Models and Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation

“…The traffic fines and risky driving in Iran are studied in different ways, including the relationship between the number of traffic offenses and fuel costs within 2011 -2019 (47), the relationship between increasing traffic fines policies and the road traffic law enforcement (48), the prevalence and determination of speeding in Iran (49), the comparison study of traffic fines in Iran and other countries (50), risky driving fined by police in 2006 and 2007 in Tehran (51), the effect of cameras on speeding behavior of taxi drivers in two highways (52), and aggressive violations (e.g., "sound horn to indicate your annoyance", "get angry, give chase", and "aversion, indicating hostility"). Moreover, Iran and Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Finland are among the countries with higher speeding violations than other countries, such as Greek and Turkey (53).…”

Impact of fuel price increasing policies on fuel smuggling and acceptance of green cars: A case study of Iran

“…Moreover, the devaluation of Iran's currency declined the number of overtaking offenses by about 26%. Altogether, it can be declared that that two factors have positive impacts on the decrease of road offenses in Iran [40]. Nasiri, Bazrafshan, and Mahmoudabadi utilized the system dynamics approach to evaluate the effects of fuel price on intercity transportation.…”