Review of Regulatory Emphasis on Transportation Safety in the United States, 2002–2009: Public versus Private Modes

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Transportation is responsible for implementing new safety improvements and regulations with the goal of ensuring limited funds are distributed to where they can have the greatest impact on safety. In this work, we conduct a study of new regulations and other reactions (such as recalls) to fatal accidents in several different modes of transportation implemented from 2002 to 2009. We find that in the safest modes of commercial aviation and bus transport, the amount of spending on new regulations is high in relation to the number of fatalities compared to the regulatory attention received by less safe modes of general aviation and private automobiles. Additionally, we study two major fatal accident investigations from commercial aviation and two major automotive recalls associated with fatal accidents. We find differences in the cost per expected fatality prevented for these reactions, with the airline accident investigations being more cost effective. Overall, we observe trends in both the automotive and aviation sectors that suggest that public transportation receives more regulatory attention than private transport. We also observe that the types of safety remedies utilized, regulation versus investigation, have varying levels of effectiveness in different transport modes. We suggest that these differences are indicative of increased public demand for safety in modes where a third party may be held responsible, even for those not participating in the transportation. These findings have important implications for the transportation industry, policymakers, and for estimating the public demand for safety in new transport modes.

How Safe Is Safe Enough for Self‐Driving Vehicles?

“…As suggested by Waycaster et al. (), an individual increases her/his demand for safety when (s)he entrusts her/his safety to an external factor such as an automated vehicle.…”

“…Research suggests that if people strongly believe a technology is characterized by dread risks (e.g., the catastrophic potential, uncontrollable) or unknown risks (e.g., newness and not fully known to science) (Fischhoff, ; Fischhoff, Slovic, Lichtenstein, Read, & Combs, ; Slovic, ; Slovic, Fischhoff, & Lichtenstein, ), they will be less likely to accept it (Otway & von Winterfeldt, ). Thus, because self‐driving is a new, less‐controllable activity than human driving, people will probably hold SDVs to higher safety standards than the status quo (Hayes, ; Waycaster et al., ). However, we cannot require SDVs to be perfectly safe, which is both technologically and economically infeasible.…”

“…At present, the answer remains unknown (Kalra & Paddock, 2016;Shladover & Nowakowski, 2017), which could cause the regulation of SDVs to be a particularly difficult task for policymakers (Shladover & Nowakowski, 2017). There is no doubt that SDVs should be safer than HDVs (Shladover & Nowakowski, 2017;Waycaster, Matsumura, Bilotkach, Haftka, Kim, 2018). The strongest selling point for SDVs is to reduce traffic crashes.…”

An Innovative Approach to Determining High-Risk Nodes in a Complex Urban Rail Transit Station: A Perspective of Promoting Urban Sustainability

“…Regulations in municipal level have also been formulated, such as the Emergency Plan for the Disposal of Rail Transit Operation Accidents in Shanghai [38], and the Emergency Plan for the Disposal of Rail Transit Emergency Events in Chongqing [39], etc. In addition, regulations or laws for transportation safety have also been established in other countries, such as the United States [4], Nigeria [40], etc. Thus, safe operation of the rail transit has been emphasized in legislation and regulations.…”

“…Transportation safety is an indispensable section in public safety [3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. In recent years, the size of cities in China have been expanding rapidly with the growth of urbanization, which leads to a large amount of transportation requirements [10].…”