45  Value of a statistical injury

Release

10.0.3

The value of a statistical injury represents the monetary value of an improvement in safety to achieve a risk reduction which would prevent one statistical injury. It can be used as a proxy to monetise the impact of an injury resulting from transport accidents.

Table 45.1 shows the estimation of the value of an injury as a fraction of the value of statistical life, following the approach and numbers presented in the Handbook on the external costs of transport.[1] This approach assumes six levels of injury, where Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) 1 and MAIS 2 represent slight injury, MAIS 3 through MAIS 5 represent serious injury and MAIS 6 represents fatality.

Thus, in Table 45.1 are presented the levels of injury, the share that the value of injury represents from the value of life and the calculated cost of injury in euros, based on these percentages and the estimated value of statistical life as presented in Chapter 44.

Table 45.1:

Estimated value of statistical injury

Injury category Share of VSL Value of injury
MAIS 1 0% €12,900
MAIS 2 4% €189,200
MAIS 3 10% €447,200
MAIS 4 26% €1,130,900
MAIS 5 59% €2,541,300
MAIS 6 (fatality) 100% €4,300,000
Source: European Commission DG MOVE (2019), Handbook on the external costs of transport

45.1 Comments

The above data should be treated with caution as there may be legal implications.

45.2 Other possible sources

Below are presented some sources recommended to be consulted in the frame of this input:

European Commission DG REGIO, Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects for Cohesion Policy 2014-2020[2]

45.4 References

[1]
European Commission DG MOVE, “Handbook on the external costs of transport,” 2019 [Online]. Available: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9781f65f-8448-11ea-bf12-01aa75ed71a1
[2]
European Commission DG REGIO, “Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis of Investment Projects for Cohesion Policy 2014-2020,” 2014 [Online]. Available: https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/publications/guides/2014/guide-to-cost-benefit-analysis-of-investment-projects-for-cohesion-policy-2014-2020