Road safety valuation under a stated choice framework

Abstract

The value of fatal risk reductions is a vital input for road safety cost-benefit analysis and has been traditionally estimated by means of contingent valuation in spite of the growing criticism surrounding this approach. Furthermore, many scholars believe that risk-money trade-offs are not well understood because of the difficulty of internalising tiny risks; the authors have applied the Stated Choice (SC) approach to tackle this problem. To assess the robustness of SC, the authors conducted an external validity test based on the results of three different studies. They found that people can internalise risk, expressed as fatal crashes, in a consistent way from an economic point of view. Finally they offer a hypothesis to explain the differences between their values and figures obtained in developed countries, highlighting the importance of conducting local studies rather than transferring imported values.