Improving our Understanding of the Cost of Injuries on the Road
Title: Improving our Understanding of the Cost of Injuries on the Road
Authors: Boris But, TRL
Description: Road collisions cause immense human suffering and economic loss. The robust assessment of relevant costs is important in supporting Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) of safety measures. In the UK, the methodology for evaluating these costs has been in use since 1990s. TRL has recently re-visited its pioneering work (O’Reilly, 1993; Hopkin & Simpson, 1995) assessing the costs of road casualties and highlighted the need to update the approach to determining cost-effective countermeasures if we are going to prevent the wasteful impact of road collisions on society and economies.
The resulting recommendations of this review point to the need of:
Enhancing the current cost-benefit analysis framework concerning road safety
Adopting a robust evidence base for appraising all casualty prevention interventions, including education, enforcement, and road and vehicle engineering safety measures
Harmonising methodologies across countries
The implementation of these recommendations will ensure that the economic costs and benefits of road safety measures can be compared on comparable terms across countries. In turn, a standardised appraisal of safety measures can lead to more informed and expeditious decision making for policymakers.
Publishing date: Apr 2021
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