Value of Safety

Abstract

We witness many severe accidents in different sectors worldwide every year, resulting in fatalities, injuries, environmental pollution, property loss, etc. Safety management aims to use interventions to prevent these undesired events and thus avoid different kinds of loss. Various interventions that have different safety performances and costs are available for managers; one safety intervention may have multiple functions, such as avoiding fatalities and protecting the environment. As a result, we need to know the value of safety when deciding on investment in interventions. To support decision-making on safety management, the Safety & Security Science Group in Delft University of Technology (TUD) conducted a project on the value of safety to get insight into the values considered in the context of safety. Four research questions have been answered, as follows: what are the values of safety? what methods are used to measure the value of safety? what are the limitations of past research? what gaps have been identified? what is the roadmap for future safety management?