Eismo saugumo politika Lietuvoje: įgyvendinimo nesėkmės priežastys ; Road safety policy in lithuania: reasons for implementation failure

Abstract

The object of this study – reasons for road safety policy implementation failure. The main purpose of master study – to clarify the reasons of inefficient implementation of road safety policy in Lithuania. Main goals of this study are as follows: to analyze G. Morgan theory and indentify presumable reasons for implementation failure; to verify, do these reasons for implementation failure exist in Lithuanian road safety policy. There are plenty of organizations, which are responsible for road safety policy implementation In Lithuania, but still, road safety situation does not improve. Decisions are made by Government, ministries, departments, but there is no one coordinating institution, which is responsible for road safety. Consequently the hypothesis of master study is that inefficient implementation of road safety policy in Lithuania is determined by disarray inside institutional system. The problems in institution system: non-existence of coordination and control and organizational unity, ineffective change management and incapacity to adapt, inappropriate organizational structure, ineffective human resource management. The main question of analysis - which problems of institutional system determine inefficient road safety policy in Lithuania? Ineffective change management is one of the most significant reasons, why the road safety policy is inefficient in Lithuania. A permanent observation of environment and capacity to adapt are necessary for effective change management. In Lithuania there is inappropriate change management group, which is not competitive and qualified for effective environment scanning. The Road Safety Commission should be change management group, but because it fragmentary converge, and it's members are not road safety specialists, the Road safety commission can't properly react to emerging situations. The other aspect of inefficient road safety policy is concerned with inappropriate organizational structure. Present institutional structure of road safety limit operative organization, planning of targets and achievable results. There is a lack of control and coordination in such institutional structure, therefore the permanent institutional cooperation and collaboration is ineffective. The main targets of road safety policy are not achieved because of the lack of control. The functions of policy control are assigned to Road safety commission, but commission converge few times a year, accordingly control is fragmentary. The duplication of functions verifies the problem of coordination mechanism. Analyzed Road safety programme indicate, that problems concerned with the lack of control and coordination are known, but they are not ready to solve. In this programme the main goals are oriented to problems concerned with road participants' culture, road infrastructure, vehicles safety, legal base development, but there are no goals concerned with control or coordination. The main recommendation of this study is coherent with establishment of coordinating institution for road safety policy. This coordinating institution could ensure consistency of proceeding and interaction between all policy levels; permanently coordinate institutions responsible for traffic supervision and control; much more attention would be intended for analysis of road accidents in the cities; road safety commissions of cities and regions could be involved in road safety policy and the cooperation with local government could be promoted. Coordinating institution is essential and should be the main institution in Road safety policy. This master study could be useful for those interested in Road safety policy and its implementation, also for those intended to analyze this actual sphere.