According to the preliminary estimates January-June 2023, in respect of the same period of 2022, a slight decrease for road accidents resulting in death or injury is recorded (79,124; -1.0%), for injured (106,493; -0.9%) and killed within 30 days (1,384; -2.5%).
The comparison with the first six months of 2019, the reference year for the decade 2021-2030 for road safety, shows still a decrease in road accidents -5.4%, injuries -9.0% and deaths – 9.8% (Chart 1; Table1).
In comparison with the first semester of 2022, killed decreases, especially on motorways (-9.7%), followed by the rural roads (-3.3%) and built up areas (-0.1%). Compared to the first six months in 2019, during the first semester of 2023, deaths sharply decrease in fatalities on motorways (-24.1%), while on urban and rural roads the decrease is estimated equal to about 7% and 9%.
For the decade 2021-2030, the European road safety targets expect the halving of the number of fatalities and serious injuries by 2030, compared to the benchmark year (set in 2019). Although the decrease for road deaths in the first six months of 2023, a new increase is estimated, using the first data collected, in the second part of the year. The path towards achieving road safety objectives therefore still presents many obstacles.
The car market shows some sufferings during the first six months of the 2023, is recovering compared to the same period of 2022: +22.2% new passengers cars registrations and +19.3% for motorcycles, but compared to 2019, new cars registration show a decline (-20.6%) and an increase for motorcycles, +39.5%. Inside the cities, the use of sharing services is still growing, including e-scooters, which have a high share of rentals.
As regard the motorway journeys, the data, of the first six months in 2023, shows an increase of +5.4% of vehicles per km on the roads, compared with the same period of the last year. This result is mainly linked to the increase of the light vehicles traffic, for which an increase, in respect of 2022, is equal to +7.1%, while for heavy vehicles, the volume of traffic recorded only a slight increase (+0.6%). As regards traffic on the main extra-urban network, increasing values were recorded for light and heavy vehicles, especially in the first quarter. On average, traffic increased by approximately 4% for light vehicles and 1% for heavy vehicles.