This report demonstrates the usage of a methodology for estimating average crash costs for use in the economic evaluation of road projects by applying it to data for the State of Victoria to derive average costs for a range of casualty crash categories for urban and non-urban operations in June 2002 prices, using reported crash data for the period 1997 to 2001. Strengths and weaknesses of the current methodology are considered and possible improvements recommended. At fairly coarse levels of aggregation, crash cost estimates generated are considered valid and robust enough for general usage, and have the added capability of reflecting within crash category variations in severity. It is recommended that it be used to generate crash cost estimates for each State and Territory for inclusion in the next Austroads biennial update of road user costs. (Author/publisher)
Abstract