Abstract
We report the results of two stated-preference surveys (one conducted using face-to-face interviews, the other via the internet) which examined how the values people place on preventing fatalities from rail accidents are affected by the extent to which victims are responsible for their death, and the scale of the accident. The results showed that respondents placed a premium on preventing deaths which involved a failure of the rail system, rather than the irresponsible behaviour of an adult victim, though this differential was less marked when the person behaving irresponsibly was a child, rather than an adult. However, the prevention of a death in a multiple-fatality accident was not accorded a significantly higher value than the prevention of death in the single-fatality case. As far as the overall results are concerned, there was an encouragingly close correspondence between the findings of the face-to-face and internet surveys.
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Acknowledgements
The study conducted in this paper was commissioned by the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), on behalf of the British rail industry as part of its research and development program, which is funded by the UK government through the Department for Transport. The authors would like to thank Terry Thomson (Oxford Risk) for his management of this project, Andy Morris (GfK NOP) and Tim Sykes (YouGov) for overseeing the programming and interface design for the CAPI and internet surveys. We are also grateful to members of RSSB for insightful comments and suggestions during the research. However the opinions expressed in the paper are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by RSSB or others associated with the project. In addition, we thank the editor for many very helpful comments and suggestions.
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Covey, J., Robinson, A., Jones-Lee, M. et al. Responsibility, scale and the valuation of rail safety. J Risk Uncertain 40, 85–108 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-009-9082-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-009-9082-0