A road safety analysis of the preliminary National Traffic and Transport Plan; Summary of establishing the effects, costs and cost-effectiveness of measures aimed at meeting the targets for the year 2010 The successor to the Dutch Second Transport Structure Plan from 1989 is the National Traffic and Transport Plan (NVVP). This plan contains the new road safety policy to be implemented until the year 2010, including the continuation of the sustainably safe concept in a second phase. The objective of this plan is to meet the targets formulated in 1986: 50% fewer fatalities and 40% fewer injuries requiring hospital admission by the year 2010. Using 1998 as the year of reference, this target will mean reducing the number of fatalities by more than 300 and the number of injuries requiring hospital admission by 4600. This study investigated whether the targets can be met by means of the measures contemplated in the NVVP and what these measures will cost. SWOV has kept the sustainably safe approach in mind for elaborating the various measures. Four categories of measures can be distinguished: 1) infrastructure, 2) influencing behaviour, 3) vehicles, and 4) intelligent transport systems (ITS). This report summarizes two sectional reports. Sectional Report 1 addresses the effectiveness of each measure and calculates for each measure the reduction in the number of casualties at a national level. Sectional Report 2 discusses the costs and the cost-effectiveness of each measure and calculates the costs of the entire package of measures, breaking down these costs into those for the government and those for the private sector. This second sectional report pays extra attention to the costs of infrastructural measures. These are compared to the financial preconditions set by the government, with a subdivision into the various layers of administration. It also includes examples that illustrate how financial resources can be employed more efficiently. For the purpose of this study, a list of road safety measures to be discussed was drawn up. These measures were obtained from the preliminary NVVP and accompanying documents such as the National Policy Agenda and a preliminary document of the Planning Group ‘Second Sustainable Safety Programme’. It was necessary to anticipate on the results of categorization plans of road authorities and discussions of the Association of Provincial Authorities, the Netherlands Centre for Research and Contract Standardization in Civil and Traffic Engineering CROW, and the Guidelines for the design of non-motorways. At the time of the study no time schedule for the introduction of the infrastructural measures was available. SWOV made the assumption that one-third of the measures would be implemented before the year 2010. In the calculations, as much as possible known (research) data about factors as the effects of measures and the degree to which and the speed at which they will be implemented were used. Whenever necessary, the data were supplemented with educated guesses. Not all of the NVVP measures could be involved in the calculations. These were the ones that would be difficult or impossible to implement or ones that would not exhibit any effects until after the year 2010 (e.g. the ITS measures). Nevertheless, certain likely measures that were introduced as options by SWOV were addressed. The effects of these, however, were not counted as contributing to realizing the goal. Wherever measures overlapped one another in terms of reducing casualties, a correction was made for duplication to prevent overestimation. Establishing the costs of the measures involved, there was close collaboration with the Netherlands Transport Research Centre (AVV), the Civil Engineering Division of the Department of Public Works, the Association of Provincial Authorities (IPO), and Goudappel Coffeng BV. The results of this study can be utilized to good effect when drawing up a catalogue of measures. The study conducted can also serve as the basis for the further elaboration of the Second Sustainable Safety Programme. Based on the results of the effectiveness of the measures listed in the NVVP, it is expected that there is a good chance the target for the year 2010 will be met. Nevertheless, these results are surrounded by uncertainty because certain assumptions had to be accepted while making the calculations. Firstly, the possibility of meeting the 2010 target could be increased by adding a number of effective measures such as the options suggested by SWOV. Secondly, better results could be achieved by incorporating the safety facet in other policy sectors. One of the incentives in this direction that were given in the NVVP was: test the environmental impact assessment procedure for new infrastructure and spatial planning against safety standards. This study showed that the cost-effectiveness ratio expressing the costs of a measure per casualty (fatality or injury requiring hospital admission) saved is a good indicator for creating a clear ranking of the measures. It was possible to establish that there are big differences in cost-effectiveness ratios for the various measures. The possibility of increasing the efficiency of measures exhibiting low rates of efficiency deserves further study. It might also be possible to replace less efficient measures by ones that are more efficient. Testing the total costs of the measures of the NVVP package against possible financial preconditions seems to indicate that in the long run, the resources to fund the measures can be found within existing budgets. There seem to be problems, however, regarding the redesigning of the provincial road network and in regard to measures for freight transport (which will have to be paid for almost entirely by private industry). For these problems and the desired commitment regarding the implementation of the Second Sustainable Safety Programme, it is likely that subsidies will once again be necessary, as they were with the Starting Programme Sustainably Safe. SWOV sees the sustainably safe policy, and especially the plan for the Second Sustainable Safety Programme, as a logical continuation of what was begun in the Starting Programme. It can be seen as the pivot of the policy in the coming decades. Central direction will be necessary, however, to minimize the differences between how the various agencies implement this policies. Finally SWOV requests that attention be devoted to informing road users and other citizens of the ideas behind the sustainable safe concept. Road users will accept measures that hamper their freedom easier when they realize that in return, both their quality of life and their safety will improve.