Research Proposal
Development and Policing Strategy of Speed Control
For Road Safety Improvement in Indonesia
The objective of the research is to develop the appropriate policies of speed control that can be adopted for meeting the target of Decade of Action (DoA) for road safety and beyond. Research will also examined the baseline of speed behavior in Indonesia that can be used for speed control policing. Some measures of speed control will be related in this research.
In 2010, United Nations has declared resolution number 64/255 which is called Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020. Resolution strongly urges all country members to tackle road safety problem by targeting reduction of road fatalities by 50% in 2020 from the baseline year 2010. This resolution has been adopted in Indonesia by Presidential Decree No. 4 year 2013. Concurrently, Vice President declared the long-term Indonesian Road Safety Strategic Plan (IRSSP) 2011-2035 in response to road safety situation in Indonesia where 31,234 were killed on the road in 2010. Actions are needed for death tolls caused by road crashes in Indonesia.
Figure 1: Road Fatalities Baseline 2010, Decade of Action 2011- 2020 and Indonesian Road Safety Strategic Plans (IRSSP) 2011-2035 targets[1]
IRSSP concludes a comprehensive vision on ways to improve road safety although this scientific approach is an ideal but not yet practice. There are still question marks how to proceed from knowledge to implementation? Hence, Police and other national road safety stake holders have a strong commitment on achieving IRSSP vision by transforming IRSSP into tangible police operations and activities, which is called Indonesian Police Action Plan (IPAP) 2011-2020 on The Road Safety.
IRSSP and IPAP adopt the concept of Safe System, which recognises that crashes will occur and human bodies are fragile. The road system must be designed to reduce the likelihood of a crash. It means when crash happens, death and serious injury are minimised. Safe journey can only be achieved if the road users appreciate safe speed on roads. Henceforth, one of the priorities in IPAP is the development of speed control and speed enforcement to reduce the risk of accident.
Figure 2: “The Safe System Approach”: Setting speed limits according to safety of roads/roadsides which tolerance to human body weakness[2]
Excessive speed has been identified in the accident database, as a major cause of road trauma in Indonesia especially along the motorways and national highways, regardless of speed enforcement as one of the most difficult tasks of enforcement in Indonesia for two reasons:
1. The behavior of road users, drivers and riders, in Indonesia do not comply with maximum speed regulation because of the absence of speed limit signs on roads and the police only rarely enforce vehicle speeding;
2. Enforcing speed requires equipment and officers capable of using the equipment. Safety pursuit is also a problem for highway patrols in particular on highways.
Within the scope of Indonesian Traffic Police (ITP) duties and responsibilities, the ITP is demanding to proceed for road map to zero fatalities comprehensively and sustainably. Meanwhile, the role of ITP is clearly to enforce the maximum speed regulation based on the maximum speed limit regulation.
However, ‘keeping speed to the limit’ does not mean always safe. Speed is also dangerous if it is higher than the circumstances at that moment allow (e.g. because of rain, fog or large traffic volume). In general, safe speed in particular is difficult to determine objectively. Therefore the police rarely enforce the speed in these circumstances though many crashes register inappropriate speed as the crash cause.
Evidence from various countries showed that speed control and enforcement are preconditions of convincing people in order to be alert and comply with safer speed. Eventually, combination of safer infrastructure and safer vehicle will keep their journey safer. How speed control and policing strategy are noticed must be studied, as well as the function of education and information and legislation, also what lessons could be learned from developed countries e.g. UK and Australia.
Figure 3: Lesson Learned from Victoria, Australia. Review of speed limits, monitoring process and implementation of road infrastructure solution[3]
On the other hands, road conditions and road user’s behavior are different from places to places. There are differences in climate, in spatial conditions, quantity and composition of traffic, legal position, culture regarding speed and safety. Speed enforcement has become one of the most difficult tasks for police. Therefore this research will try to answer the questions:
1. What is the appropriate policies of speed control that can be adopted for meeting the target of decade of action for road safety and beyond
2. What is the base line of speed behavior in Indonesia that can be used for speed control policing in Indonesia
To develop the appropriate answer, this research will be conducted in a quantitative approach that will involve before and after studies. Some potential data resources are:
1. Road crashes database from Indonesia Integrated Road Safety Management System;
2. East Indonesia National Road Improvement Projects (EINRIP) Monitoring and Evaluation Studies of road traffic variables and accidents on rural East Indonesia Roads (2008-2015), and
3. HDM4-Integrated Road Management System with Pilot project in West Java Province.
Surveys of road infrastructure and observation of police operation on selected locations will portray a range of safe speed and speed control environment. It is expected that in this triangulation model the best answer to the research questions could be found.
[1] Indonesian Road Safety Strategic Plans, Ministry of National Planning and Development, 2011
[2] The phrase Safe System approach refers to a broad category of strategies for road safety management, as described in Towards Zero: Ambitious Road Safety Targets And The Safe System Approach (Paris, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) / International Transport Forum, 2008). While the Safe System approach has influenced strategies in several countries, the term itself does not refer to the road safety program of any single country.
[3] Vicroad Report on Casualty Crashes per 10^8 Vehicle Kilometers’ Travelled (VKT) by Annual Average Daily Travel (AADT) on Rural Road Sections in Victoria (excluding intersection crashes), 2008