Existing road audits

Road Safety Audits are not carried out on existing roads in the UK although they are routinely carried out in other countries (see Chapter 7). This type of work is carried out as Route Safety Studies in the UK with an emphasis on historic accident and casualty data. 

It is very important that a comprehensive site visit is carried out not only of the scheme itself but also of the surrounding area. Particular attention needs to be given to the tie-ins between the proposed scheme and the existing road network. HD 19/03 specifies that the whole Audit Team should visit the site together at all Road Safety Audit stages. Some local authorities relax these requirements by having one auditor visiting the site on smaller schemes. 

An example of a Stage 2 Road Safety Audit Report problem/ recommendation format follows. In this case a new traffic signal junction is being introduced on an existing road. 

In many countries the Road Safety Audit process is being extended to carry out Road Safety Audits on existing roads. In some of these countries the quality of accident data is poor, and reporting levels are low. The Road Safety Audit Report is therefore used as a proxy for accident data. 

Road Safety Audit of existing roads is not carried out in the UK. Instead, route safety studies are routinely carried out based on an analysis of historical injury accident records, and the definition of problems arising from those records. Local Safety Schemes have produced significant casualty reductions and excellent cost-benefit returns at single sites and along routes in the UK for the past 35 years. 

Auditing on existing roads - road safety inspections case studies - Ireland and Saudi Arabia 174... 

Road Safety Audits are not carried out on existing roads in the UK, although they are often carried out in other countries (see Chapters 8 and 10). In the UK, this type of work is carried out routinely by local highway authorities as route safety studies using historic collision data to identify problem routes and to establish common types of collisions. In addition, since 2002, the Road Safety Foundation has produced an annual report mapping the risks on motorways and major A roads in the UK as part of the EuroRAP project (Road Safety Foundation, 2013). The report compares risks on roads in different areas of the UK, and shows how risks on roads have changed over time. 

The EU Directive on Road Safety Infrastructure Safety Management (EU, 2008) already referred to in Chapter 1 not only makes Road Safety Audit a requirement on major roads in Europe but it also requires road safety inspections of existing roads. Article 6... 

A suitably qualified Road Safety Audit Team should carry out the Stage 4 audit, which is conducted in a similar way to a collision investigation on an existing road. The process will be as follows ... 

Australian jurisdictions have adopted Road Safety Auditing at each phase of a road project, from feasibility through to design, construction and pre-opening. Audits of existing roads are undertaken, but are typically known as Road Safety Assessments. 

The procedures are considered interim , pending the review and update of the Austroads guidelines as detailed above. The procedures are for new projects or developments, and are not used for auditing existing roads. 

Road Safety Audit work started in Malaysia in 1995 on selected existing roads under the supervision of senior road engineers and a road safety expert from Australia. The team put together guidelines for Road Safety Audit in Malaysia that were first published in 1997. 

At present, Road Safety Audits are not carried out on a routine basis, but the checklist corresponding to the existing roads stage audit is used as a tool to review the safety of existing roads. An iRAP review (see also Chapter 10, p. 180) of 1500 km of roads (including five national roads) showed that 60% were graded as three stars or better and... 

The Road Safety Audit process can also be applied to existing roads, where they will be based on collision rates, police advice and speed measurements. Major maintenance schemes (but not routine periodic maintenance) may be subject to Road Safety Audit. 

Road Safety Audits are applied to a similar extent to existing road situations and to new road projects. Unlike most international practice, for most agencies in the USA there is often little distinction in terminology or overall approach between the evaluation of an existing roadway section or intersection and the evaluation of a proposed facility plan or design during project development. 

British traffic engineers first developed the idea of a Road Safety Audit as a safety check for new and improved road schemes in the early 1980s. However, the concept of a safety checking procedure within transportation had existed for over 150 years. 

The other scenario is where the recipient of the report does not accept that the identified problem exists. In this case, the Exception Report should produce some evidence as to why the problem is not valid. It may be that the Road Safety Audit Team did not have all the information available, or that the scheme design has changed since the plans used in the audit were prepared. 

Although a significant amount of human factors research has been conducted within the rail industry in recent years, still a far greater amount of such research is available from other transport industries such as aviation and road transport (Wilson and Norris, 2005). There are many similarities in the types of human faetors challenges encoimtered across various transport operations, so there is likely to be much the rail industry can leam from the way in which other transport industries have applied human factors research and expertise. Prior research ((Queensland Rail, 2003) highlighted a number of opportunities to adapt existing human error initiatives from the aviation domain to rail. One sneh initiative is the Line Operations Safety Audit (LOSA) program. 

The European Directive 2008/96/CE requires member states to establish and implement procedures related to road safety impact assessments, road safely audits, the management of road network safety and safety inspections. In the Directive, great emphasis is given to road Safety Inspections (SI) as an effective tool for the safety management of existing toads stating Once road sections with a high accident concentration have been treated and remedial measures have been taken, safety inspections as a preventive measnre should assume a more important role. 

The safety analyses typically include a review of crash history to see if a crash problem exists. However, some states are incorporating new safety tools and methods to include road safety audits/assessments and the application of safety models found in the new Highway Safety Manual. 

LA Yes Just beginning to perform Road Safety Audits if crash history exists. 

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