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The road safety targets of the Dutch National Traffic and Transport Plan are achievable

 

About 300 fewer deaths in 2010 and a decrease in the number of in-patients by 4,600. Are these road safety targets in the recently proposed Dutch National Traffic and Transport Plan (NVVP) achievable? Which results can be expected from the (packages of) separate measures? And what does it all cost?

 

The Dutch Ministry of Transport asked SWOV to calculate the effects of the NVVP measures, to be able to judge the achievability of the road safety targets in the Netherlands. The calculations appear to be positive ( D-2000-09). SWOV research shows that the measures suggested could reduce the number of road victims by a quarter. Furthermore, the measures can for a large part be financed from existing budgets.

New road safety policy

 

The draft NVVP, which was recently presented by the Dutch Minister of Transport is the successor to the Second Transport Structure Plan of 1989. In the new traffic and transport plans to 2010, the continuation of the second phase of "Sustainably Safe" has been included. The NVVP still aims at achieving the target set in 1986 for the year 2010: a maximum of 750 deaths and 14,000 in-patients.

The table below shows the progress made in road safety in the period from 1986 to 1998. Related to the new base year of 1998, this target means there must be a further reduction of 30% deaths and 25% in-patients. It appears that the 2010 target for in-patients (-25%) is more ambitious than the target for deaths (-30%) when taking into account the casualty reduction during the period 1986-1998.

Reduction percentages of road victims in the Netherlands.

 

 

Deaths

In-patients

Development in 1986-1998

-30.2%

-16.9%

Still to achieve in 1998-2010

-29.6%

-24.7%

 

 

The SWOV Sustainably Safe approach served as a starting point for calculating the various measures. Four categories of measures were therefore distinguished, that is infrastructure, behaviour, vehicles, and intelligent transport systems (ITS). When performing the calculations, as much use as possible was made of known (research) data, such as knowledge on the effects of measures in general and the extent to which, and the speed in which, they are carried out. Where necessary, the data was supplemented by a "best guess".

The study consists of two parts (SWOV reports d-2000-09I and D-2000-9II ). In the first part, the effect of each measure separately was totalled to calculate their combined effect on the national casualty reduction. The second part examined the costs and cost-effectiveness of each measure. These were calculated to examine the costs of the total package of measures. Calculating the costs of the measures involved close cooperation with the Transport Research Centre of the Ministry of Transport, The Ministry's Road Construction Division, the Inter-Provincial Consultation, and a consultancy firm.

 

Measures, effects, and costs

 

In order to prevent overestimation of the total effect of the measures on the national casualty reduction, the overlapping effects of a number of measures were taken into account. The effect estimation of the total package of measures is a reduction of more than 300 deaths and 4,500 in-patients by 2010. These measures are based on the "Sustainably Safe" vision. SWOV views the sustainably-safe policy, and especially the plan for a second phase, as the pivot for policy during the next decennium. A strong central management is recommended to ensure that the differences - or even conflicts - in the decentralized realisation of this policy, will not be too great. SWOV also asks that attention be paid to communicating the ideas behind 'Sustainably Safe" to the road users. The acceptance of impeding measures will be greater when road users realise that they receive a better quality of life in exchange for the introduction of, and adherence to, such measures.

The cost-effectiveness ratio (C-E ratio), that expresses the costs per victim (deaths or in-patients) saved, has been used as indicator in ranking the measures by efficiency. It was established that there were large differences in the C-E ratios of the various measures.

The study shows that it should be possible to finance the NVVP measures from existing budgets of Road Authorities and other actors. However, there appear to be bottlenecks in a) the restructing and redesigning of the provincial road network, and b) goods transport measures, which will almost entirely have to be paid by the transport companies. Probably additional financial measures are needed to eliminate these bottlenecks, and for achieving the necessary involvement for carrying out "Sustainably Safe Phase 2". This also happened during the "Start-up Programme Sustainably Safe".

The results of this study permit them to be added to a future measure catalogue. The research carried out can also serve as a basis for further planning of the second phase of "Sustainably Safe".

SWOV Research Activities 16 - April 2001

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