Overview
In traffic and transport decision-making, the available road safety information is often not used optimally. Information may concerns road safety consequences, or costs and benefits of certain measures. The goal of this project is to promote the use of these types of information during the decision-making process. To achieve this, two concrete studies have been designed. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = 'urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office' />
In both cases, a research will be made on factors in the decision-making process that hinder or promote information use. They will focus on:
- The decision-making about investments in infrastructure;
- The construction of 60 km/h zones
There is little managerial research known in the specific areas of decision-making. The project will provide information about the weighing up of interests, and the hindering and promoting factors for information use by actors in decision-making processes. It thus forms an extension and addition to already existing research on decision-making.
The project provides knowledge about optimising the use of (costs and benefits) information during road safety decision-making processes, and the weighing up of the road safety interests in decision-making processes about the construction of new roads.
The part about investments in infrastructure will begin with a theory-directed literature study, a detailed research design, and the development of a checklist. Using this, for a number of decision-making processes about investing in infrastructure, it will be examined at which moment in the decision-making the road safety considerations play a role. At the same time and in an experimental-like setting, an examination will be made of whether, and in which way, cost-benefit information is used by decision-makers. This will be done with (group) discussions. In the part relevant to the construction of 60 km/h zones, between 8 and a maximum of 20 cases will be examined as a continuation of a previous pilot study. After this, a study will be made on whether managers take into account the support for taking decisions about road safety measures.