An economic evaluation of incremental resources to road safety programmes in New Zealand

Road crashes are related to the level of traffic, road and weather conditions, and most importantly, road user behaviour, which is a function of the level of enforcement, education and advertising campaigns. Safety programmes such as enforcement and advertising campaigns on drink-driving, speeding or seatbelt wearing aim to improve road user behaviour, and thereby to reduce the number and severity of crashes. This paper estimates incremental safety outcomes of these programmes over time and compares them with their resource costs. Due to the common outcome of several programmes, it is difficult to identify the effects of individual programmes. This paper tries to separate out the effects of non-roading safety programmes as a group from roading improvements. The analysis shows that safety programmes in New Zealand produce high incremental returns. Given that the crash risks in New Zealand are high in comparison with most other OECD countries, there is considerable scope for improvements to be made. The high incremental benefit/cost ratio over time supports this view and indicates that the investment in safety programmes is well below the optimal level.