Investigation of the effects of Vision Zero approach on road traffic safety: Gaziantep

Vision Zero strategy was developed as an effective solution to traffic accidents and the number of injuries and fatalities in Sweden in 1997 and spread worldwide. Turkey is among the ten countries constituting almost half of the global traffic accident deaths. Turkey started to implement Vision Zero strategies and activities in 2013, such as infrastructure enhancements including double-lane highways, law and enforcement revisions, post-crash emergency response, and care, and realized positive results. Previous studies have examined these applications for inter-urban roads but not inner-city streets. In this study, the effect of vision zero applications was investigated for the first time in Turkey on urban roads in Gaziantep. Speed controls applied for speed control, the first cause of traffic accidents in Turkey and the world, were evaluated. Only one year after the start date of speed inspections, an 87.5 % decrease in traffic accidents in urban death rates was determined. As a result of the coup in Turkey in 2016, the EDS system was turned off for security reasons. There has been an increase of five times in urban death rates in traffic accidents in the following year, 2017. Later, due to various administrative reasons, only red light violation cameras were put into service, and speed corridor enforcements were not implemented. During this period, an 37,5 % decrease was observed in the urban death rates in traffic accidents, according to 2015 results. Key Words: Vision Zero, Road Safety, Traffic Accidents, Speed Enforcement, Red- light Violation