The Value of a Statistical Life in a Road Safety Context — A Review of the Current Literature

Bahamonde-Birke, Francisco J.; Kunert, Uwe; Link, Heike

doi:10.1080/01441647.2015.1025454

Cited by 27 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…We opt for the 'driver' formulation used by Mouter et al (2017) not only because it is by far the most frequently used approach for consumer experiments in the literature (e.g. Abrantes and Wardman, 2011;Bahamonde-Birke et al, 2015;Batley et al in press;Börjesson and Eliasson, 2014;Ehreke et al, 2015;Hensher et al, 2009;Kouwenhoven et al, 2014;Rizzi et al, 2003), but this format also shows most resemblance with the citizen experiments. However, the experimental set-up in the present study deviates somewhat from the original design of Mouter et al (2017) in that respondents completed both driver and citizen choice tasks and were asked to provide verbal motivations for their choices.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The consumer-citizen duality: Ten reasons why citizens prefer safety and drivers desire speed

Mouter

Cranenburgh

Wee

2018

Accident Analysis & Prevention

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Cost-benefit analyses for transportation projects usually value impacts on safety and travel time through experiments in which consumers of mobility ('drivers') choose between routes which differ in safety and travel time. This approach has been criticized for failing to consider that private choices may not fully reflect citizens' preferences over public goods and means, a concept known as the consumer-citizen duality. Recent empirical evidence has established that individuals do indeed assign comparatively more value to safety in their role as citizens than in their role as drivers. Our study aims to provide explanations for this finding by presenting four stated choice experiments in which respondents were asked to make choices, both as citizens and as drivers, between routes that differed in travel time and safety. Subsequently, respondents were asked to provide reasons for their choices. We identify five cognitive and five normative explanations. The cognitive explanations suggest that individuals make diverging choices because their perceptions of accident risk differ between the two roles. Drivers will assign a relatively low value to mitigating accident risk because they believe that: (1) such risks are trivial on an individual level; (2) their personal risk is lower than the average risk; (3) their personal risk is controllable; (4) they would not be able to distinguish relative safety levels in real life; and (5) their choices for others are more risk-averse than choices for themselves and, unlike citizens, they are not explicitly evaluating risky choices for others. The normative explanations involve that individuals believe that the government should assign more value to safety compared to individual drivers because: (6) as citizen they are more prone to base their choices on social norms which prescribe risk-averse behaviour in this context; (7) governments have a duty of care concerning the safety of the transportation network; (8) drivers have a relatively high degree of responsibility to reduce their own travel times; (9) governments should account for drivers' tendencies to choose faster routes by building safer ones; and (10) governments should ensure the safety of the road network because this allows drivers to choose the fastest route without being concerned about the impact of their route choice on accident risk.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The consumer-citizen duality: Ten reasons why citizens prefer safety and drivers desire speed

Mouter

Cranenburgh

Wee

2018

Accident Analysis & Prevention

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“…unspecified) life. The valuation occurs ex ante, before the incident occurs: it is the willingness to pay for reducing the probability of becoming a victim that is estimated [5]. Methods to asses this trade-off are based on actual behaviour (revealed preference) or by surveys in which respondents are asked how much they would pay for more safety (stated preference).…”

Section: Different Approaches To Estimate Human Costs 411 Willingnementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Especially stated preference methods where the trade-off between money and risk reduction is simulated by questionnaires in which people are asked how much they would pay for more safety, are prone to several potential biases. This leads to a large variability of results [5,6]. Furthermore, a WTP study only provides global information and cannot reflect the great diversity of types of road injuries, their severity and health consequences.…”

Section: A Comparison Between Different Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs related to serious road injuries: a European perspective

Schoeters¹,

Wijnen²,

Carnis

et al. 2020

Eur. Transp. Res. Rev.

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Introduction Costs related to road crashes represent an important societal burden. Additionally they constitute an essential input variable to assess the cost efficiency of road safety measures. While most attention is usually spent on costs related to fatal crashes, this paper focuses on costs related to serious injuries. Method A review of these costs is presented based on different data sets and methods. Results A survey collecting crash cost estimates in European countries shows considerable variation in the costs related to serious injuries. The reported cost per serious injury varies between €28,205 and €975,074 and the total costs related to serious injuries vary between 0.04% and 2.7% of a country’s GDP. The applied methodology to estimate human costs appears to have a large influence. Other potential explanations are the applied definition for seriously injured victims, the registration procedure of crashes with serious injuries and the cost components that are included. Detailed analyses of medical costs and production loss that are based on country-specific datasets show the importance of assessing medical costs on the long term and taking into account the variation of these costs for different subgroups of traffic victims. A comparison of approaches to estimate monetary values for human costs shows that most countries use the Willingness To Pay method. While having a sound theoretical background, this method is rather limited in the specification of injuries. The use of Quality Adjusted Life Years gives the possibility to provide values for a larger diversity of injury types.

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“…Therefore, methods based on stated preferences have been developed in which respondents are asked to state their willingness to pay for health improvements in hypothetical situations (e.g. Bahamonde-Birke, Kunert, & Link, 2015).…”

Section: Approaches To Cost Calculationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs of air pollutants from shipping: a meta-regression analysis

Gren

Brutemark²,

Jägerbrand

et al. 2020

Transport Reviews

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This study estimated the external cost of air pollution from shipping by means of a meta-regression analysis, which has not been made before. Three pollutants, which were included in most of the primary studies, were considered: nitrogen oxides (NO x), sulphur dioxides (SO 2) and particulate matters with a diameter of max 2.5 micrometres (PM 2.5). All primary studies included damages of health and a majority added impacts on agriculture and estimated the cost of air pollutants by transferring cost estimates from studies on costs of air emissions from transports in Europe. Different regression models and estimators were used and robust results were found of statistically significant emission elasticities of below one, i.e. total external costs increase by less than 1% when emissions increase by 1%. There was a small variation between the pollutants, with the highest elasticity for PM 2.5 and lowest for NO x. Calculations of the marginal external cost of the pollutants showed the same pattern, with this cost being approximately six times higher for PM 2.5 than for the other pollutants. Common to all pollutants was that the marginal external cost decreases when emission increases. Another robust result was a significant increase in the cost of studies published in journals compared with other publication outlets. These findings point out some caution when transferring constant external unit cost of air pollutant from shipping, which is much applied in the literature, and the cost functions estimated in this study could thus provide a complementary transfer mechanism.

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The Value of a Statistical Life in a Road Safety Context — A Review of the Current Literature

Cited by 27 publications

References 87 publications

The consumer-citizen duality: Ten reasons why citizens prefer safety and drivers desire speed

The consumer-citizen duality: Ten reasons why citizens prefer safety and drivers desire speed

Costs related to serious road injuries: a European perspective

Costs of air pollutants from shipping: a meta-regression analysis

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