External costs of traffic accidents on Slovenian roads

Abstract

Traffic safety can be viewed from different perspectives. In this study, we assess traffic safety in Slovenia from the point of view of costs. Slovenia is a small country at a crossroads of important European routes that provides good developmental possibilities, but at the same time faces potential threats to traffic safety because the inland infrastructure does not seem ready to accommodate the increasingly high traffic flows. We have created a time series for several traffic safety and workload indicators, and have analysed them using simple descriptive statistics. We have then provided an assessment of the costs arising from road accidents. We discovered that despite a large improvement in traffic safety records, it seems that such trends could soon come to an end because of the heterogenisation and growth of traffic flows, as well as the deterioration of national and municipal roads.