Road safety knowledge and policy: A historical institutional analysis of the Netherlands

• We explored knowledge use in Dutch road safety policy.
• We performed a historical institutional analysis.
• The regional and local level became increasingly important in policy but less in knowledge.
• Dutch road safety knowledge is not optimally tailored to regional and local governments.
• Dutch road safety knowledge is not optimally tailored to consider various policy interests.

This paper explores the institutional development of Dutch road safety policy over the last century and the role of knowledge therein. After a theoretical exploration of the concept of institutionalization, the article sketches an overview of the institutionalization of road safety policy in the Netherlands between 1900 and 2010. In particular, it reports on the rise of knowledge organizations and national policy departments since the 1960s. Furthermore, it indicates an increasing importance of the regional and local level of governance since 1990 in road safety, while knowledge relevant at that level is hardly produced. This recent mismatch between knowledge production and policy making results in two barriers for knowledge utilization in road safety policy: Dutch road safety knowledge is neither well tailored to regional and local governments, nor does it pay sufficient attention to the needs of regional and local governments to weigh various interests with road safety. This study presents an example of an investigation on how institutional patterns may enable and constrain knowledge utilization.