Traffic crashes cost estimation in Kuwait

Abstract

This study estimated the cost of road crashes in Kuwait for 2012 using human capital method, particularly, gross loss output method. Three cost components were considered: cost of personal loss, cost of vehicle crash and general crash-related cost. The overall cost of road crashes in Kuwait in 2012 reached a value of 789,401,438 KD with a crash cost rate of 9121.6 KD/crash. It was also found that the cost of personal loss was 276,203,532 KD, the cost of vehicle crash was 36,560,898 KD and the general crash-related cost was 476,637,009 KD. Moreover, the analysis showed that the cost of traffic crashes in Al Asimah governorate was the highest amongst the six Kuwait governorates. Mubarak Al-Kabeer governorate had the lowest traffic crashes cost. Furthermore, fatal crashes resulted in a considerable productivity loss cost as well as life quality cost. On the other hand, minor injury and property damage-only (PDO) crashes resulted in large administrative costs. Finally, travel delay and loss of productivity costs comprised 50 and 20% of the total cost of traffic crashes, respectively.

Keywords:

• Traffic crashes
• human capital
• crash cost
• Kuwait

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.