Estimated Cost of Traffic Casualties in Iran Based on Conditional Valuation Approach

In this study, the willingness to pay approach has been employed by using studies done in developed countries. The willingness to pay method measures the value of life in terms of values for which people are willing to pay for reducing risks threatening their lives. This study has been conducted with the aim of investigating the employment of the willingness to pay method and designing relevant questionnaires. Two usable methods, i.e., obvious preference and expressive preference are taken into account in the willingness to pay approach. From among these two methods, the obvious method is highly applicable and people's safety is questioned by using questionnaires directly or indirectly. The use of conditional valuation is a known method for estimating willingness to pay, and in this study, open-ended questionnaires were used. To this end, the number of 400 people was considered and two in-person interview and phone contact ways were employed. The findings suggested that, by summing up all items of costs along with human capital method, the economic load arising from traffic casualties in Iran was estimated to be over 4 billion dollars in 2011. By reducing the value of willingness to pay in 2013 (equivalent to 65000 dollars for each person) to that of 2010 by using the medium inflation rate, the value of this cost is estimated for 30000 dollars for each person in 2010. The overhead value of 53%based on the willingness to pay approach relative to the human capital method is much similar to the findings of international studies including infrastructure, transportation and regional economy bureau in Australia.