Economic Evaluation of Road Traffic Safety Measures

The economic appraisal of road safety measures poses the basic problem of determining which method to use for the valuation of road safety measures. Given that road safety or, to be more precise, lack of road safety is measured in terms of the total number of fatalities and injuries, either slight or severe, the economic calculation can be based on the value of human life and the estimated cost of injuries. There are two methods of valuation that can be applied at this stage: the so-called "human capital" approach and the approach based on the "willingness to pay" for the prevention of injury. Use of these two approaches is mutually exclusive, despite the fact that they are significantly complementary. They are briefly described below: