An Ecological Analysis of Crash Risk Differences Between Access and Non-Access Controlled Highways an a Low-Income Country

Urbanization around highways is frequent in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and can affect traffic safety negatively if it is inadequately-planned. Access control has shown to reduce significantly highway crashes in developed countries, but this intervention has been explored to a lesser extent in LMICs. This case study aimed to compare crash risk differences between an access-controlled highway sections with that of non-access controlled sections in Pakistan. Using the aggregated data of crashes and vehicle-km travelled, crash fatality and pedestrian crash risks were compared between the 397 km-long sections of access controlled Motorway 1&2 (M1&2) and the 332-km-long non-access controlled road sections of N5 between cities of Attock and Lahore. The crash fatality risk per billion vehicle-km travelled were 47.2 on the access-controlled road sections and 47.4 on the non-access controlled road sections; these rates were over ten times higher than on similar roads in France. Pedestrian crash risks were significantly higher on non-access controlled road sections than access controlled road sections indicating that access control could reduce over two-thirds of pedestrian crashes on highways in Pakistan.