Estimation of the Willingness to Pay for Road Safety Improvements and Its Correlation with Specific Demographic, Psychological, and Behavioral Factors

摘要

This paper attempts to investigate the correlation of the willingness to pay for road safety improvements with several factors, such as gender, age, involvement in traffic accidents, etc. The willingness to pay shows the determination of people towards the goal of drastically reducing traffic accidents. In order to estimate the willingness to pay for road safety improvements, a contingent valuation questionnaire survey took place, in which 452 drivers of different age groups, economic statuses, and levels of education participated. The main aim of the survey was to investigate the correlation of the willingness to pay for the implementation of three scenarios of road safety improvements, in the form of traffic accident reduction rate, with several factors. The main statistically significant results are the following: a) in regard to gender, women would pay more for road safety improvements compared to men; b) in regard to mental state, people who avoid driving when they are affected by strong emotions, such as anger and distress, would pay more for road safety improvements; and c) in regard to age, as the age increases the self-reported driving ability increases as well, a finding that was not expected. Another result is that there are indications that people who have been involved in traffic accidents would pay more for road safety improvements compared to those that have not been involved and, moreover, the amount of money they would pay increases according to the severity of the accidents; nevertheless, this finding needs further research regarding its statistical significance.