Centralization versus decentralization of traffic law enforcement governance in Spain

ABSTRACT

The current paper deals with the debate over centralization versus decentralization in road safety management, and specifically in traffic law enforcement. We address the case study of Spain, where a single traffic law acquis is enforced by two systems: road policing decentralized for some regions and national road policing for all others. Our econometric findings reveal that the Spanish regions with centralized traffic policing present better safety figures, which might be useful for reinforcing the coordinated performance of road safety policy in other traditionally decentralized countries. Furthermore, our evidence indicates that cautious analyses have to be carried out on a case-by-case basis.

KEYWORDS:

• road safety
• law enforcement
• traffic police management
• centralization
• decentralization
• multilevel governance

JEL:

• K42
• L91
• R41

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: (1) Accidents on interurban roads; Fatalities on interurban roads; and Driver census (exposure variable), all from the Spanish General Traffic Directorate Yearbook. (2) Decentralization, from the Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs. (3) Unemployment rate; Average age; Ratio of population in capital city; Motorization rate; Tourists; and Per capita GDP, all from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE). (4) Highways ratio, from the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and Urban Agenda. (5) Precipitation, from the Spanish State Weather Agency). (6) Population density, from Eurostat. (7) Hospital density, from the National Hospitals Catalog – Spanish Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs, and Social Welfare (see Table 3).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Endogenous variables are modelled using a Poisson distribution with driver census as the exposure variable.

2. ‘Paso del Estrecho’ refers to the operation managed jointly by Spain and Morocco whereby more than 3 million immigrants travel each summer from Europe to their countries of origin in North Africa, requiring them to transit through Spain by vehicle.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Andalusian Government of Spain (Junta de Andalucía. Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento) under Grant to I+D+i research projects (European Regional Development Funds) 2014–2020, number US-15508.