Road Safety Audit

Time spent: 9 hrs

Hossein Naraghi
CE 590 Special Topics
Safety
June 2003
 Road Safety Audit
A complementary action to accident
reduction is accident prevention
The aim is to ensure that the road system
is safe
One of the key component of accident
prevention involves the use of safety
checks or safety audits
The focus is on the design of new road and
traffic schemes
Sometimes the focus is on the existing roadway
Definition and objectives of
road safety audit
Significant improvements in safety
are not automatic safety must be
Systematically designed into each
project
Highway designers must seek safety
opportunities specific to each project and
apply sound safety and traffic
engineering principles
This process which aimed at preventive
road safety engineering is the road
safety audit
 Definition and objectives of
road safety audit (continued)
The Roads and Traffic Authority of
New South Wales describe safety
audit as
A means of checking the design,
implementation and operation of road
projects against a set of safety principles
as a means of accident prevention and
treatment
 Essential elements
The essential elements of the road
safety audit process are
A formal process and not an informal
check
An independent process

Carried out by someone with appropriate

experience and training
Restricted to road safety issues
 Safety audit objectives
The objective of the road safety audit is to
Minimize the risk and severity of road
accidents that might be affected by the
road project at the site or nearby network
Minimize the need for remedial work after
construction
Reduce the whole-life costs of the project
Improve the awareness of the safe design
practices by all of those involved in the
planning, design, construction and
maintenance of roads
 Safety audit objectives
(continued)
Road safety audit can work in two ways:
1. Removing preventable crash producing
elements at the planning or design stage
e.g. inappropriate intersection layouts
2. Mitigating the effects of remaining or
existing problems
Inclusion of suitable accident reducing
features
Anti-skid surfacing
Guard fencing
Traffic control devices
Delineation, and etc
 Safety audit objectives
(continued)
Highway designers and traffic engineers
have always practiced a form of safety audit
What is important about the recent
emergence of the practice is
Its specific incorporation as a discrete phase
Independent of the designer
Development of defined auditing procedures
Followed within a road or traffic agency
May be incorporated within an overall quality
management or quality assurance process within
the agency
 Use of road safety audit
The concept of road safety audit
emerged initially in Britain in 1980s
It was one of the key response to the
Governments target of reducing road
fatalities by one-third by the year 2000
It was given impetus by the preparation of
two key publications
1. Road Safety Code of Good Practice
Local Authorities Association, 1989
2. Guidelines for the Safety Audits of Highways
Institution of Highways and Transportation, 1990
 Use of road safety audit
(continued)
Road safety audit was made mandatory for all
national trunk roads and motorways in 1991
In the light of the success of British experiences
the process has also adopted in
New Zealand began the safety audit process in
1992
From 1993, safety audit was mandatory in 20 percent
sample of State highway projects
A comprehensive road safety audit policy has been
prepared
The World Bank has begun to show an interest in
the safety audit subject in 1992
 Application of road safety
audit
Road safety audit may be carried out at any
or all following stages
Stage 1: Feasibility
A safety audit can influence
the scope of a project
route choice
selection of design standards
impact on existing road network
route continuity
provisions of interchanges or intersections
access control
number of lanes
route terminals, stage development, etc
 Application of road safety
audit (continued)
Stage 2: Draft design
This audit stage is undertaken on completion
of a draft plan or a preliminary design.
Typical considerations include
Horizontal and vertical alignment
Sightlines
Intersection layouts
Lane and shoulder width
Super elevation
Overtaking lanes
Provisions for parked and stationary vehicles
Provisions for bicyclists and pedestrians
Effects of departures from standards and guidelines
Safety during construction, etc
 Application of road safety
audit (continued)
Stage 3: Detailed design
This stage is on completion of detailed
design, normally before preparation of
contract documents, considerations include:
Line markings
Signing
Delineation
Lighting
Intersection details
Clearance to roadside objects
Provision to road user groups with special requirements
Temporary traffic management and control during
construction
 Application of road safety
audit (continued)
Drainage
Roadside objects
Landscaping
Batters
Guard fencing, etc
Stage 4: Pre-opening
Prior to opening of the road to traffic
The audit would involve driving, riding and
walking through the project to check the
adequacy for the needs of all road users
Involve night-time inspection
Inspection of both wet and dry conditions
 Application of road safety
audit (continued)
It would consider similar issues raised in stage 2
and 3, but with the view of assessing their
adequacy as actually constructed
Taking specific note of variations that might have
occurred from the plans in the process of
construction
Stage 5: In-service
Systematic examination of sections of the
existing road network to assess the adequacy
of the road, intersection, roadside, etc from
an explicit safety viewpoint
This can have two applications
Application of road safety
audit (continued)
Monitoring a new scheme after it is opened
to traffic
i.e. in the weeks and months following the stage 4
audit
Safety audit of an existing road network with
a view of identifying safety-related
deficiencies
Although all 5 of the above stages can
and have been used
In practice the first and last of these stages
are less common
 Safety audit process
The key requirements are
Management commitment
Auditors are outsiders brought in to find things
wrong with their work
Audit process brings specialists advice to the design
team
In relation to implementation of the safety
management system in the USA, Hall 1993 was
concerned about
Other functional units may believe that the accomplishment
of their goals are threatened by the infringement of safety
management initiatives into their territory
Care should be taken throughout system implementation to
maintain an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual respect
among affected functional areas
 Safety audit process
(continued)
An agreed road safety audit process
The process aim to reduce the whole life cost
of a scheme
Although there will be cost of audit process, it
is worthwhile if offset against the potential for
savings elsewhere
The savings may be from
Timely alteration to plans
It is much cheaper to change a detail on a plan
than to replace or remove a feature once installed
Subsequent accident prevention
Reduction in the costs resulting from litigation
 Safety audit process
(continued)
An independent auditor or audit team
There must be a designated procedure
for acting upon the audit report
If a specialist team is used, one of three
procedures can be followed
1. Prior agreement to accept safety audit
recommendations
2. Assessment of the audit report by the
client
3. Assessment of the audit report by the
designer
 Safety audit process
(continued)
An agency developing a road safety audit
process will need to determine which of these
procedures to follow, depending upon its own
expertise and the role of safety auditing within a
wider institutional framework such as quality
management
No matter which procedure is adopted the
key factors are as follow
The audit team must include specialist
knowledge of road safety engineering
Safety audit findings should be formally
documented and reported at each step of the
audit process
 Safety audit process
(continued)
A set of checklists
Use of checklists which show type of issues
and problems that can potentially arise at the
relevant stage of the project
Checklists are a memory prompt
When using checklists, it is less likely to
overlook problems
They can not be a substitute for expertise
One of the main benefits of checklists is that
designers can use that to audit themselves
before their work gets to the auditor
 Safety audit process
(continued)
Training and development of expertise
The size of the audit team depends on the size
and complexity of the project
British experience says at the feasibility or
layout design stage, three-person team would
be suitable, Comprising
A road safety specialist with experience in crash
investigation and safety engineering principles and
practice
A highway design engineer
A person with experience in safety audit, who is able
to generate discussion and assist in the procedure
 Safety audit process
(continued)
Monitoring and evaluation
Process of monitoring and evaluation
involves three aspects
Procedures, problem encountered, and
effectiveness of the system
Critical appraisal of the checklists and
their use
Evaluation of costs and resources by
scheme type and stage
 Liability
The Australian guidelines include a chapter
on legal issues, with following conclusion
No case involving a road safety audit has yet
come before a court
The legal implication must be speculative
The predictions are not guesswork, they are
based upon well established principles of tort
law
Safety audit will create a safer road
environment
Liability (continued)
A major objective of litigation is encourage
safety, therefore the use of safety audit will
be encouraged by the legal system
Roads can be made safe by different methods
Black spot treatment
Periodic inspection
Adoption of higher standards of engineering
practice
Greater allocation of funds and road safety audits
It is for highway authorities to decide which
mix of these is best for a given project
 Audits of existing roads
A formal program of safety audit of existing
roads can be an important component of the
overall audit process
The aim of this stage of audit is to identify any
existing safety deficiency of design, layout, and
street furniture which are not consistent with
roads function
There should be consistency of standards
Many items may be related to maintenance of the
road, therefore the benefit of the safety audit
process is to ensure that these items are placed
on the maintenance program
 Audit of development
projects
An extension of the road safety audit in some
local authorities is to require that
development proposals be audited, these
may include
A new commercial development which will
generate traffic on an existing road
A residential development which involves street
construction
In a road safety audit context, these would need
to be independently audited and a report
submitted as part of development application
 Audit of development
projects (continued)
Audit report of development projects
may address
The safety impact of peak period
congestion
The generation of pedestrians and
bicyclists movements across existing roads
The safe provision of public transportation

Vehicular and pedestrian access to the site

Audit of development
projects (continued)
Adequacy of parking provision from a
safety viewpoint
Pedestrian-vehicle conflicts on and
adjacent to the site
Type and layout of intersections and new
road alignments
Speeds within the site

visibility
 Effectiveness of road safety audit
Although safety audit is relatively a new
technique, evidence is emerging that safety
audit is a cost-effective safety measure
A formal requirement that a project be subjected
to a safety audit will very likely lead to improved
safety
UK experience suggests that for individual
schemes perhaps one-third of crashes have the
potential for removal by safety audit
It should be noted that the resources need to be
devoted to safety audit are in fact quite small
Effectiveness of road safety audit
(continued)
UK experience suggests that one safety auditor is
required to cover an area experiencing 1000
casualty crashes per year
Australian and New Zealand experience suggest
that safety audit adds 4% to road design costs
without consideration of whole life savings from
safety audit
There have been some attempt to quantify the
benefits of safety audit
One highway authority in Scotland, 1991 has estimated
that one-third of future accidents at road improvements
are preventable by audit, and that a one percent
accident saving per year worth $1.5 million at resource
of $100,000, a benefit:cost ratio of 15:1
 Benefits of road safety audit
Austroads, 1994 summarizes the benefits of
road safety audit
The possibility of crashes on the road network can
be reduced
The severity of crashes can be reduces
Road safety is given greater prominence in the
mind of road designers and traffic engineers
The need for costly remedial work is reduced
The total cost of the project to the community is
reduced