Assessing road safety performance in Chinese provinces: A comprehensive analysis of the past decade

The issue of road safety is a growing global concern, and evaluating performance in this area is crucial for the development of effective safety policies and the allocation of safety resources. Amidst the input-output perspective of road safety risks, this study endeavors to assess the performance of provincial road safety in China from 2012 to 2021. To achieve this goal, the research employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the DEA-window approach, grounded in the framework of variable/constant returns to scale (VRS/CRS) models. The results reveal that Shanghai and Tibet consistently achieved efficient scores using both the DEA-VRS and DEA-CRS methods throughout the past decade. There is a small difference of 0.028 and 0.025 between the average scores obtained from the DEA and DEA-window analysis using the VRS and CRS models, respectively. Shanghai, Tibet, and Beijing demonstrate exceptional performance in both the DEA-CRS-window and DEA-VRS-window analysis, while North China, Southwest China, Central China, and South China exhibits the significant variations in performance ranking. This study enhances the understanding of the current road safety status in China and offers valuable insights for policymakers to formulate targeted measures, aiming to continuously improve road safety performance across various provinces through benchmarking management