A SHORT SCALE OF TRAFFIC CLIMATE ACROSS FIVE COUNTRIES

Abstract

The Traffic Climate Scale (TCS) measures the perceptions and attitudes of road users about the given traffic context with three dimensions: external affective demands, functionality, and internal requirements. The TCS was developed in Turkish and then translated into several languages. The main aim of the current study was to develop a shorter version of the TCS and to test the factor structures cross-culturally (i.e. Estonia, Greece, Kosovo, Russia, and Turkey). In addition, the five countries were compared in terms of their perceived traffic climate.  Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the fit of the models. The results yielded two different Mini-TCS versions that were developed based on the previous longer versions. The two Mini-TCS versions included 22 items and 16 items respectively. The goodness of fit findings showed that both versions of the Mini-TCS are useful short measures of the TCS in Estonia, Greece, Kosovo, Russia and Turkey. The comparison analyses showed that five countries had both similarities and differences in terms of their traffic climate. To illustrate, Turkey, Greece, and Kosovo had the highest scores in external affective demands and internal requirements dimensions; whereas Kosovo, Russia, and Estonia had the highest scores in functionality dimension in both long and short versions. The findings suggested that both versions of Mini-TCS are effective tools that can be used to understand how road users conceptualize traffic context in these five countries. 

Keywords

• Traffic Climate Scale
• Traffic climate
• road users
• traffic safety

References

1. Chu, W., Wu, C., Atombo, C., Zhang, H., & Özkan, T. (2019). Traffic climate, driver behaviour, and accidents involvement in China. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 122, 119-126.
2. Cortina, J.M. (1993). What is coefficient alpha? An examination of theory and applications. Journal of Applied Psychology 78, 98–104.
3. Gehlert, T., Hagemeister, C., & Özkan, T. (2014). Traffic safety climate attitudes of road users in Germany. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 26, 326-336.
4. Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1-55.
5. Lajunen, T., Parker, D., & Summala, H. (2004). The Manchester Driver Behaviour Questionnaire: A cross-cultural study. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 36(2), 231-238.
6. Martinussen, L. M., Lajunen, T., Møller, M., & Özkan, T. (2013). Short and user-friendly: The development and validation of the Mini-DBQ. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 50, 1259-1265.
7. Osberg, J. S., Stiles, S. C., & Asare, O. K. (1998). Bicycle safety behavior in Paris and Boston. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 30(5), 679-687.
8. Özkan, T., & Lajunen, T. (2011). Person and environment: Traffic culture. In Handbook of Traffic Psychology (pp. 179-192).

9. Özkan, T. & Lajunen, T. (2015). A general traffic (Safety) culture system (G-TraSaCu-S). TraSaCu Project, European Commission, RISE Programme. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16515.20006.
10. Özkan, T., Lajunen, T., Chliaoutakis, J., Parker, D., & Summala, H. (2006). Cross- cultural differences in driving behaviours: A comparison of six countries. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 9, 227-242.
11. Russell, D. W. (2002). In search of underlying dimensions: The use (and abuse) of factor analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(12), 1629-1646.
12. Schermelleh-Engel, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Müller, H. (2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Tests of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. Methods of Psychological Research Online, 8(2), 23-74.
13. Smith, G.T., McCarthy, D.M., & Anderson, K.G. (2000). On the sins of short-form development. Psychological Assessment 12, 102–111.
14. Solmazer, G., Azık, D., Fındık, G., Üzümcüoğlu, Y., Ersan, Ö., Kaçan, B., ... & Pashkevich, M. (2020). Cross-cultural differences in pedestrian behaviors in relation to values: A comparison of five countries. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 138, 105459.
15. Stevens, J. (1996). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
16. Üzümcüoğlu, Y., Özkan, T., Wu, C., & Zhang, H. (2019). How drivers perceive traffic? How they behave in traffic of Turkey and China?. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 64, 463-471.
17. Warner, H. W., Özkan, T., Lajunen, T., & Tzamalouka, G. (2011). Cross-cultural comparison of drivers’ tendency to commit different aberrant driving behaviours. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 14(5), 390-399.
18. World Health Organization (2015). Global Status Report on Road Safety. World Health Organization. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2015/en/
19. World Health Organization. (2016). World Health Statistics 2016. World Health Organization. Retrieved from: http://gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/Files/Maps/Global_RoadTraffic_Mortality_2013.png
20. Zhang, Q., Ge, Y., Qu, W., Zhang, K., & Sun, X. (2018). The traffic climate in China: The mediating effect of traffic safety climate between personality and dangerous driving behavior. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 113, 213-223.