Pedestrians are the road user category that suffer most injuries caused by ice or snow surface conditions and require medical care. In a VTI study it is demonstrated that pedestrian injury costs, attributed to footway accidents caused by ice and snow, are much higher than the actual winter maintenance cost. Furthermore, approximately 85 per cent of the pedestrians were injured in urban traffic environment. As a result of this, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (Salar) endeavours to develop a better understanding for these types of accidents. The project’s aim was to analyse the importance of the authority or the association responsible for winter maintenance. Did it make a difference to the number of injury accidents if it was the road authority or a property association who managed the winter maintenance? SKL also wanted to know the extent of pedestrian injury costs and relate these to the cost of winter maintenance. Injured pedestrians data from STRADA healthcare client, in the period 2003-07-01 to 2010-06-30, provided a basis for the analysis. Often, it was only the Kalmar, Skåne, Värmland, Västmanland, Västernorrland and Jämtland regions that were included in the analysis. This was because hospitals from these regions had registered injured pedestrian data in STRADA during the whole analysis period. All injured persons do not necessarily seek hospital care. Treatment may have been obtained from other health care providers. The greater the distance to the hospital, the more likely it is to seek other health care treatment. This means that there is an underestimate of the number of injured. Winter maintenance costs were obtained for the years 2005 and 2007. The costs related to road authorities’ total winter maintenance costs. Property associations’ maintenance costs for footway surfaces are not included in road authority costs so the costs are for road maintenance. Where the road authority is also responsible for footway surfaces, the cost of maintaining these surfaces is included in the total cost. This means that road authority costs are overestimated. Using the available data, it has not been possible to determine any differences in the number of injured pedestrians associated to winter maintenance carried out by either road authorities or property associations. However, it has been demonstrated that pedestrian injury costs, attributed to footway accidents caused by ice and snow, are much higher than the actual winter maintenance cost. In fact, where the road authority maintains pedestrian surfaces, injury costs are at least four times larger than the total cost of winter maintenance. This means that, in socio-economic terms, it would be worthwhile to invest more resources in footway winter maintenance. (Author/publisher) This report may be accessed by Internet users at http://www.vti.se/en/publications/injured-pedestrians--the-cost-of-pede…
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