The UAE’s ambitious vision to diversify its economy has driven substantial investments into sectors like e-commerce and delivery services, with the GCC’s market projected to reach USD 50 billion by 2025. In the post-pandemic era, these industries have become indispensable to residents, relying heavily on road networks for delivery. As a result, ensuring road safety has become more critical than ever, particularly for heavy vehicles transporting vast amounts of inventory. To prevent accidents and protect this vital economic lifeline, improving road safety is essential. Road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of GDP, leading to significant economic losses from treatment costs, lost productivity, and caregiving for injured family members.
Traffic accidents surge in 2023
In the UAE, traffic accidents rose to 4,391 in 2023, up from 3,945 in 2022. Driver error, including distracted driving, sudden deviation, tailgating, negligence and poor lane discipline, caused 70% of accidents. In Dubai, sudden deviation alone led to 517 of the 2,176 collisions recorded.
Vehicles in the UAE are equipped with advanced safety features, so road safety largely falls on drivers. The nation has implemented strict legislation and advanced technology like radars and AI-powered cameras to detect violations, including speeding, mobile phone use, illegal lane changes, and failure to buckle up, leading to significant road safety improvements. Today, more advanced technologies like geospatial solutions have been developed to enhance the safety of drivers in bigger vehicles and the overall community.
Non-obvious causes of accidents
The issue of road safety is more complex than it appears, with less obvious factors contributing to accidents. Seasonal changes and tyre conditions significantly increase the risk of skidding during sudden weather shifts, like the first rain. Rising costs for auto parts also contribute to road safety issues, as some drivers delay essential vehicle repairs, leading to dangerous wear and tear. This is far from the only non-obvious technical problem: a poorly optimized route can also lead to accidents on the road.
Intersections are among the most accident-prone areas of the road network, even with traffic lights in place. The complexity of multiple vehicles, often of different sizes, navigating through these spaces makes them particularly challenging, especially when making left turns. Left turns are generally considered unsafe on roads with right-hand traffic. A slight miscalculation can place a vehicle directly in the path of oncoming traffic, leading to collisions.
Research by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that left turns were one of the “critical near-crash events,” i.e. events that made a collision inevitable. They accounted for 22.2% of crashes, compared to just 1.2% for right turns. Moreover, 61% of intersection crashes during turns involve left turns, while only 3.1% involve right turns. Left turns are also three times more likely to result in pedestrian fatalities than right turns, according to New York City transportation data, underscoring their inherent danger.
Global case studies
The American express delivery and logistics company UPS supported the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s study and showed from its own experience that left turns are dangerous and ineffective. The company’s trucks rarely make left turns, saving approximately 37 million litres of fuel annually. This approach also improves cargo transportation safety and saves time, as avoiding left turns reduces waiting times by 30 seconds to a minute.
They managed to reduce the number of “wrong” turns to a minimum: back in 2010-2012, an algorithm was developed that distinguishes important left turns from unimportant ones, helping to optimize the route, and reduce left turns, but at the same time not “circle” around the city with right turns. By implementing this system into its navigation, UPS not only avoided losses but also reduced the number of accidents.
Geotechnologies today
The market now offers solutions to optimize routes and reduce road accidents. Companies like Mappable provide mapping, geospatial, and navigation solutions tailored to business needs, with high flexibility in their products. Their routing application programming interfaces (APIs) allow companies to integrate special solutions to enable drivers to avoid certain zones, such as the city centre or residential areas; optimise the travel through multiple points in terms of time and mileage, considering traffic jams and weather conditions; and deprioritize left turns’ which makes the journey safer and more comfortable for drivers of trucks and freight transport. These customizable settings not only help prevent accidents but also lower fuel consumption, as drivers won’t have to wait as long to make left turns at intersections. As the Geographic Information Systems market in the GCC is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.1% until 2028, these technologies are set to become increasingly essential.
Improving road safety in 2025 requires an integrated approach, combining regulatory enhancements with innovative technologies and geographic information systems. Collaboration among government, society, and businesses is crucial for developing and supporting specialized technologies, ensuring safer roads, and effectively addressing this important social issue.
