A comparison of bus passengers’ and car drivers’ valuation of casualty risk reductions in their routes

Authors

Stefan Flügel
Knut Veisten
Luis I. Rizzi
Juan de Dios Ortúzar
Rune Elvik

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2018

Subject Area

place - europe, mode - bus, mode - car, planning - methods, planning - safety/accidents, ridership - behaviour

Keywords

Choice experiment, Contingent valuation, Fatality, Injury, Insecurity, Time saving

Abstract

Introduction

The economic value of safety represents an important guide to transport policy, and more studies on individuals’ valuation of road safety are called for. This paper presents a stated preference study of the value of preventing fatal and serious injuries involving bus passengers and car drivers in road accidents.

Objectives

Former valuation studies based on travel behaviour and route choice have involved primarily car drivers. Our study also included bus passengers, thus providing a comparison of two types of transport mode users. Moreover, the comparison was based on two different valuation methods.

Methodology

About 600 bus passengers and nearly 2300 car users from different areas of Norway reported a recent trip, described by its distance and travel cost. Then they answered stated choice tasks that took a reference in the reported trip and involved trade-offs among travel time, fatal and seriously injured victims and travel costs. Afterwards, they faced a simple trade-off between travel costs, and fatal and seriously injured victims.

Findings

Pooling the data from the two stated preference formats, we derived values of a statistical life and of a statistical seriously injured victim. Regarding the value of statistical life, our point estimates were NOK 45.5 million and NOK 58.3 million for bus users and car users respectively.

Discussion

The point estimates for bus passengers and car users were not statistically different given their confidence intervals. Thus, we recommend the use of a single value, identical for both modes of transport, for the prevention of a statistical fatality as well as for a statistical injury

Rights

Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.

Comments

Accident Analysis and Prevention Home Page:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00014575

Recommended Citation

Flügel, S., Veisten, K., Rizzi, L.I., de Dios Ortúzar, J., & Elvik, R. (2018). A comparison of bus passengers’ and car drivers’ valuation of casualty risk reductions in their routes. Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 122, pp. 63-75.