INTERNAL COSTS AND BENEFITS OF DAMAGE PREVENTION MEASURES

Measures to reduce material damage within companies may both increase the business economic performance of the company and traffic safety in general. In this paper the notion of whether such measures are economically feasible is investigated. Results are presented of a series of interviews among transport companies and of a postal questionnaire survey. Next, calculations are presented for three types of companies: a small family company, a large family company and a large formalized company. The main conclusions are that a successful introduction of measures is largely influenced by psychological and cultural factors. Especially in larger companies, substantial cost savings may occur due to an active material damage prevention policy, which will also have positive impacts on traffic safety in general.