Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

E2: Environmental statistics and accounts; sustainable development

e-mail contact : ESTAT-SDI-EU2020-INDICATORS@ec.europa.eu

The indicator is part of the EU Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator set. It is used to monitor progress towards SDG 11 on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable and SDG 3 on good health and well-being.

Among other things, SDG 11 aims to renew and plan cities and other human settlements so that they offer opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation, green public spaces and others, while improving resource use and reducing environmental impacts. With sound, risk-informed and smart planning and management, SDG 11 envisions cities as environmentally resilient human settlements, which drive sustainable development, stimulate innovation and foster community cohesion and personal safety. SDG 3 aims to ensure health and well-being for all at all ages by improving reproductive, maternal and child health; ending the epidemics of major communicable diseases; reducing non-communicable and mental diseases.

The indicator can be considered as similar to global SDG indicator 3.6.1 "Death rate due to road traffic injuries".

In 2010 the Commission adopted the communication ‘Towards a European road safety area: policy orientations on road safety 2011–2020‘, setting the target of halving the overall number of road deaths in the EU by 2020 compared to 2010 and outlining 16 proposed actions divided under seven focus areas. A mix of policy measures have been put in place, which aim to make users, vehicles and infrastructure safer. 

The indicator measures the number of fatalities caused by road accidents, including drivers and passengers of motorised vehicles and pedal cycles as well as pedestrians. Persons dying on road accidents up to 30 days after the occurrence of the accident are counted as road accident fatalities. After these 30 days, a different cause of death might be declared by reporting institutions. For Member States not using this definition, corrective factors are applied.

The average population of the reference year (calculated as the arithmetic mean of the population on 1st January of two consecutive years) is used as denominator (per 100 000 persons).

persons and number per 100 000 persons

Calendar year

The data are reported directly by national CARE (Community Database on Accidents on the Roads in Europe) experts. Each Member State produces its own road accident database by following its own procedures according to national protocols and formats and by using road accident data collected by the police. In some countries, police data is complemented by information collected by hospitals (i.e. DK, NL, EL, SE, ES, SI) or by governmental organisations (BE, PT, HU). Where national concepts differ from European ones correction factors are used to alleviate the problem. This applies mainly to the implementation of the 30-day period in countries where it differs. With a few exceptions (LV, MT, SI) all Member States systematically implement data quality cross­checking.

DG MOVE (CARE database)

Data source: CARE database

Data provider: European Commission (EC) - Directorate General Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), based on data reported by the countries.

Every year

Indicator is updated annually.

T+2 years

New data points are disseminated within two years after the reference year.

All EU MS

Data are presented for all EU Member States plus the United Kingdom.

All EU MS

Data are comparable between all EU Member States and the other presented countries.

> 10 years

 Presented time series (including EU aggregates) starts in 2001.

> 4 data points

Length of comparable time series without methodological break is longer than 4 data points.

Analysis of indicator is presented in Eurostat's annual monitoring report on Sustainable development in the EU (progress towards SDGs in the EU context).

see table  sdg_11_40

Eurostat dedicated section on SDGs: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/sdi/overview

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