Cost-effectiveness of a sustainable safe road traffic system in The Netherlands : contribution to the European seminar `Cost-effectiveness of road safety work and measures', Luxembourg, November 26-27, 1996.

The Dutch Government has set the following quantitative targets for road safety: a 25 per cent reduction in the number of road deaths and injuries by the year 2000 (compared with 1985 levels) and a further reduction of 50% and 40% respectively by the year 201 0 (compared with 1986 levels). Various indicators suggest that road safety in The Netherlands is not showing enough significant signs of improvement and it is no longer certain that the aforementioned targets will be met, even if the traditional policy continued to be followed. New, innovative road safety policy is required and in 1990 SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research was invited by the Dutch Government to develop a scientifically supported, long term concept of a considerably safer road traffic system. The general concept of sustainable development introduced by the UN Brundtland Commission also inspired the new vision for road safety: no longer do we want to hand over a road traffic system to the next generation in which we have to accept that road transport inevitably causes thousands of deaths and ten thousands of injuries, year after year in The Netherlands. A sustainably safe road traffic system is one in which the road infrastructure has been adapted to the limitations of human capacity through proper road design, in which vehicles are technically equipped to simplify driving and to give all possible protection to vulnerable human beings, and in which road users have been properly educated, informed, and, where necessary, deterred from undesirable or dangerous behaviour. Man should be the reference standard and road safety problems should be tackled at its roots. Safety Principles were identified as keys to arrive at a sustainably safe system (functional use of the road network, homogeneous use en predictable use) and based on these Principles as a basically theoretical perspective the concept has been worked out. Stimulated by a discussion in the Dutch Parliament, the concept of sustainable road safety has been adopted by the Dutch Government as an official part of its policy. Many other stake-holders supported the concept (other governmental levels and the `road safety community'), although some doubts have been heard about financing the implementation and about possible side-effects. Furthermore, some differences how to translate the vision practically could be detected between road safety professionals. Two major developments took place since the concept was launched. A special Steering Committee prepared a so-called Start-up Programme covering the first phase of implementation. Another important step was to implement different large scale demonstration projects in The Netherlands in order to enlarge our practical knowledge and experience on how sustainable road safety may be put into practice. Estimates have been made to investigate what the introduction of a sustainably safe traffic system would cost. The first SWOV-estimations resulted in 60 billion Dutch guilders; a major proportion of this money should be invested in adapting the existing road infrastructure according to the Principles of sustainable safety. Based on different recent and more detailed estimations, a more sober implementation would cost 30 billion Dutch guilders. SWOV has suggested to spread these investments over a period of 30 years in order to run these investments in parallel with the standard maintenance of the road infrastructure; a period of 30 years is a reasonable one for the Dutch circumstances. If we invest 30 billion Dutch guilders over a period of 30 years, we estimate a reduction of 60% of the number of road accident casualties. Even if we use a conservative basis for cost-effectiveness estimations, SWOV concludes a cost-effectiveness of 9%, which is considerably higher than the customary government standard of a 4% return on investment for infrastructure projects. The key stakeholder to realise a sustainably safe road traffic system is the government, either directly as investor or indirectly as `broker' between those who could invest and those who profit from the benefits. (A