The report estimates the socio-economic costs of accidents in road, rail, air and water-borne transport modes for the European Union (EU) as a whole. For road transport, the COST 313 inventory of socio-economic costs of road accidents, compiled in the early 1990s, is updated and extended to cover all EU Member States. The same method of estimation is applied for all countries; it includes economic costs and a value of human life, based on the willingness-to-pay approach. Though this method is also applied to non-road modes, the results there are much less certain, because empirical data are scarce and many tentative estimates had to be made. Based on a limited number of studies, the willingness-to-pay value for a serious injury is assumed to be 10% of that for a fatality. For slight injuries, only economic costs are considered. It is estimated that the 45,000 EU road fatalities in 1995 had total socio-economic costs of 162 billion ECU. The corresponding number of fatalities and costs for rail, air and water-borne transport accidents in 1995 were estimated to be 1300, 168, and 180 fatalities, and 2.7, 0.5, and 1.8 billion ECU, respectively. Based on these statistics, seven recommendations are made. For example, higher priority should be given to road safety in EU transport investments and research.
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