Organisation: Department for Transport
Date uploaded: 25th May 2011
Date published/launched: Pre 2009
This report concerns the effectiveness of Motorway Service Areas (MSAs) in reducing road traffic crashes, especially those that are sleep related crashes.
It is presented in three parts: the relationship of fatal and injury RTCs to the location of MSAs; a survey of why drivers stop at MSAs; followed by a general discussion.
A total of 682 crashes were investigated, of which 181 (26%) were considered to be SRCs. Further analyses were restricted to 16 km either side of 14 MSAs in order to assess whether there was a reduction in RTCs after an MSA compared with the same distance beforehand. Within these 16 km sections, a total of 355 RTCs were prior to the MSAs, and 304 were afterwards. This 14% reduction was not statistically significant.
When these RTCs were sub-divided into SRCs and non-SRCs, there were 108 SRCs prior to MSAs and 84 afterwards. This 22% decrease was statistically significant, indicating that MSAs were associated with some crash reduction, but only with this type of RTC as all other non-SRCs showed a non-significant 11% drop.
Moreover, there were large differences between MSAs in all these respects, with about half the MSAs seeming to have little or no beneficial effect on RTCs or SRCs.
For more information contact:
Louise Reyner
T: +44 (0)1509 223024