The relatively poor road safety situation in Belgium has motivated the government to increase its efforts in road safety improvements. These investments reduce the negative effects of road accidents. To minimize the number and costs of accidents, the resources should be employed efficiently. In order to assess whether and which investments are desirable, the benefits of reducing the negative effects need to be quantified. Therefore, the first research question in this dissertation is: 1) What are the appropriate values for the negative effects of road accidents in Flanders which can be used in social cost-benefit analysis ? This broad research question can be divided into several specific research questions. To that end, the negative effects are first classified in three different groups: non-injury costs, injury costs and casualty-related costs. The non-injury costs relate to the costs that arise from the road accident, but have no direct link with the road casualties. The injury related costs are those costs that are associated with the road casualties, but are carried by society. The casualty related costs are those costs which are directly born by the casualty itself. This type of costs can be subdivided in two elements: production losses and human losses. Both elements together are called the value of a statistical life and are the very heart of the matter in this dissertation. The human losses represent the pain and grief caused by road accidents. If the number of road accidents is reduced, then pain and grief are avoided. In order to assess the desirability of road safety measures, these human losses need to be valued. Different methodologies are available to estimate the human losses from road accidents. The estimate is based on what a group of individuals are willing to pay to avoid a road fatality. Based on the literature, an appropriate elicitation format will be developed. The second research question thus is: 2) What is the willingness to pay for the avoidance of a road fatality in Flanders based on a contingent valuation approach ? 3) What is the effect of sociodemographic variables on the willingness to pay ? The contingent valuation method is not received without skepticism. A number of potential biases in the contingent valuation method can be remedied by a discrete choice experiment. Therefore, the next research questions are: 4) What is the willingness to pay to avoid a fatal road casualty in Flanders based on a discrete choice experiment ? 5) Which sociodemographic variables have an impact on the willingness to pay? Discrete choice experiments can be personalised for the respondents by including specifications in the choice experiment. This makes it possible to derive different estimates for specific situations. Specifically, the following research questions will be examined: 6) What is the impact of trip length on the willingness to pay to avoid a fatal road casualty based on a discrete choice experiment ? 7) What is the impact of trip motives on the willingness to pay to avoid a fatal road casualty based on a discrete choice experiment ? 8) What is the impact of risk exposure on the willingness to pay to avoid a fatal road casualty based on a discrete choice experiment ? Road safety investments often have an impact on the time needed to make a trip. This effect should also be included in a cost-benefit analysis. The discrete choice experiment that will be used also enables us to take this into account. Therefore, the next research question is: 9) What is the value of time derived from a discrete choice experiment which incorporates also differences in the risk to die ? Obviously, road safety investments not only have an impact on the number of fatal casualties, but also affect injured casualties. Therefore, two final research questions relate to the willingness to pay to avoid road injuries. Specifically, the following research questions are examined: 10) What is the relative willingness to pay to avoid road injuries, compared to a road fatality ? 11) What sociodemographic variables have an impact on this relative willingness to pay ? (Author/publisher)
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