Barriers to the use of efficiency assessment tools in road safety policy

Many European countries have set ambitious targets for reducing the number of road accident fatalities. The European Union has a target of reducing the number of road accident fatalities from 40,000 in 2000 to 20,000 in 2010. Efficiency Assessment Tools (EAT) can help policy makers identify the most cost-effective or profitable road safety measures. It is reasonable to assume that more fatalities and injuries could be prevented if road safety policy priorities were based on wellperformed efficiency analyses. EAT comprise cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). CEA sets out from given road safety targets or road safety budgets and rank measures according to lowest monetary costs. It is a method for estimating the € cost of, e.g., one life saved, for a given road safety measure. CBA involves monetary assessment of both costs and benefits of a measure. CBA enables efficiency assessment of both road safety measures and infrastructure investments in which road safety compete with other goals, like mobility and environment. It can thus handle monetary comparison of safety goals with other societal goals. Comparable to the market place CBA provides a weighting of allocations according to “one euro one vote”.

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