US-based nationwide study investigated costs of equipping large trucks with advanced safety technologies and estimated societal benefits under varying scenarios.
Nationwide, United States
Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Societal benefit-cost analysis of three large truck safety technologies
Summary Information
The objective of this study was to provide scientifically-based estimates of the societal benefits and costs of large truck automatic emergency braking (AEB), lane departure warning (LDW), and video-based onboard safety monitoring (OSM). For each technology, benefit-cost analyses were performed for installing the technology on all large trucks (including retrofitting existing trucks) and for equipping new large trucks only. Sensitivity analyses examined three cost estimates (low, average, high; values technology-specific), two estimates of system efficacy (low and high; values technology-specific), and three discount rates (0 percent, 3 percent, 7 percent) for each technology.
Equipping large trucks with lane departure warning (LDW) and video-based on-board safety systems were found to be cost effective on a societal level for all combinations of costs, efficacy, and economic discount rates examined in the study, for both new and existing trucks. Results for automatic emergency braking (AEB) were mixed. The AEB system was analyzed as cost effective considering societal benefits when equipping new trucks and retrofitting existing trucks at the $500 system cost level. However, all three systems were considered cost effective with an assumed 28 percent efficacy rate, when limiting to the case of only equipping new large trucks.
Overall, the study demonstrated the value of using varying sensitivity factors and scenarios to estimate society-level benefits compared to costs for specific safety technologies. The results suggested that all three studied technologies can be cost-effective in the scenario of equipping new large trucks, provided the current costs and sufficient efficacy rates can be maintained or improved upon. However, it is important to note that societal benefits were used in the study.
Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Societal benefit-cost analysis of three large truck safety technologies
Volume 121, December 2018