THE VALUE OF SAFETY: RESULTS OF A NATIONAL SAMPLE SURVEY. IN: URBAN TRANSPORT

Abstract

Public sector allocative and legislative decisions typically involve the assessment of a variety of prospective consequences. In some cases, notably in transport as well as energy and medical care, these consequences may include significant beneficial or harmful effects on individual safety. If such decisions are to be taken in a systematic and consistent manner and if scarce resources are to be allocated efficiently and to greatest advantage, then it would seem to be necessary to have a method of associating explicit values with anticipated improvements in safety and costs in deterioration in order that these effects can be weighted in relation to other desirable and undesirable consequences of the decisions.