Economic valuation of preventing fatal and serious road injuries. Results of a Willingness-To-Pay study in four European countries.

This paper presents the results of a stated choice study for estimating the Willingness-To-Pay of respondents in four European countries (Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands) to reduce the risk of fatal and serious injuries in road crashes. Respondents were confronted with hypothetical route choices that differ in respect of travel costs, travel time and crash risk. The survey was completed by 8,002 respondents, equally spread over the four participating countries and representative for each country with regards to gender, age and region. Possible biases caused by problematic choice behaviour such as inconsistent, irrational or lexicographic answers were addressed. The resulting values were estimated by means of a mixed logit model allowing to account for the panel nature of the data. The Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) was estimated at 6.2 Mill EUR, the Value of a Statistical Serious Injury (VSSI) at 950,000 EUR, and the Value of Time (VoT) at 16.1 EUR/h. Consequently, the relative value of avoiding a fatal injury is estimated to be around 7 times higher than the value of an avoided serious injury. The study revealed differences between countries with France showing values that are significantly lower than the average and Germany showing values that are significantly higher. The estimated VSL values are considerably higher than the values currently used in the four countries, but they are within the range of values found in similar stated choice studies. The results can be used as an input in a broad range of socioeconomic studies including cost-benefit analysis and assessments of socioeconomic costs of road crashes.

A systematic cost-benefit analysis of 29 road safety measures.

Economic evaluations of road safety measures are only rarely published in the scholarly literature. We collected and (re-)analyzed evidence in order to conduct cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) for 29 road safety measures. The information on crash costs was based on data from a survey in European countries. We applied a systematic procedure including corrections for inflation and Purchasing Power Parity in order to express all the monetary information in the same units (EUR, 2015). Cost-benefit analyses were done for measures with favorable estimated effects on road safety and for which relevant information on costs could be found. Results were assessed in terms of benefit-to-cost ratios and net present value. In order to account for some uncertainties, we carried out sensitivity analyses based on varying assumptions for costs of measures and measure effectiveness. Moreover we defined some combinations used as best case and worst case scenarios. In the best estimate scenario, 25 measures turn out to be cost-effective. 4 measures (road lighting, automatic barriers installation, area wide traffic calming and mandatory eyesight tests) are not cost-effective according to this scenario. In total, 14 measures remain cost-effective throughout all scenarios, whereas 10 other measures switch from cost-effective in the best case scenario to not cost-effective in the worst case scenario. For three measures insufficient information is available to calculate all scenarios. Two measures (automatic barriers installation and area wide traffic calming) even in the best case do not become cost-effective. Inherent uncertainties tend to be present in the underlying data on costs of measures, effects and target groups. Results of CBAs are not necessarily generally valid or directly transferable to other settings.