Keith Vodden Dr. Douglas Smith - Transports Canada

Analysis and Estimation of the Social Cost of Motor Vehicle Collisions in Ontario
The Canadian totals show over 613,000 collisions in 2004 involving over 1
million vehicles. Although the number of collisions and number of vehicles involved do
not change the distribution by collision severity does. For example PDOs decline by 6%
while fatal and injury collisions increase by 2% and 18% respectively. The number of
fatalities is increased by 5% to 2,773, the number of major (to 25,354) and minimal (to
225,350) injuries increase by slightly less than 50% while minor injuries (to 257,786)
increase by slightly more than 100%. All percentage increases for fatalities and injuries
are in keeping with the Ontario core model.
B. SOCIAL COST
Exhibit VI-6 presents detail on the social costs by jurisdiction based on the data
by jurisdiction from the Traffic Accident Information Database (Exhibit VI-1), the
revisions and adjustments to the data as discussed in earlier sections (See Exhibits VII-2
and 3), and the social cost methodology of the model. Note that the detailed cost
estimates by jurisdiction assume the cost structures observed in Ontario. If differences
exist in the consequences by jurisdiction (proportion of calls by fire departments to
collisions for example) or nature of the markets impacted by collisions (for example tow
truck services are more or less competitive) there will be differences in the nature and
distribution of costs from those observed in Ontario. As a result readers should expect
less certainty in the cost estimates for jurisdictions other than Ontario. Also note that the
Canadian jurisdictions model uses a slightly simplified approach to handling transfers
among collision types to reflect extra fatalities and injuries occurring in injury and PDO
collisions. This simplified approach results in less than a 0.03% difference in total social
costs between the less precise estimates for Ontario in Exhibit VI-6 compared to results
for the Ontario core model in Exhibit IV-1. The social cost of PDOs is 2% higher and
injury collision is less than 1% lower in the jurisdictions model compared to the Ontario
core model.
92 TNS Canadian Facts, Social and Policy Research