Pedestrian audits

A few organisations undertake pedestrian audits of their designs. In a similar way to a cycle audit the objective is to make sure the needs of pedestrians have been adequately considered in the scheme design. 

A few organisations undertake pedestrian audits of their designs. In a similar way to a... 

Road Safety Audit considers the safety of all road users and in particular vulnerable road users such as the visually and mobility impaired, cyclists, pedestrians, equestrians, motorcyclists, children and the elderly. 

Mobility audits are carried out to check that people with disabilities are not disadvantaged in any way by a scheme design. The audits consider the provision for visually and hearing-impaired pedestrians, wheelchair users and mobility-impaired people. The publication Inclusive Mobility is a useful point of reference for anyone carrying out these audits. The latest requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 could lead to these audits becoming more... 

Road Safety Audit Teams are sometimes asked to audit a new typ>e of scheme, or a scheme with new design elements within it for example, introducing a diagonal pedestrian crossing at a set of traffic signals or using a new type of safety fence. 

Pedestrian Road Safety Audit Guidelines and Prompt Lists http //drusilla.hsrc.unc.edu/ cms/downloads/PedRSA.reduced.pdf (accessed August 18, 2010). U.S. Federal Highway Administration. Outlines basic concepts used in conducting pedestrian road safety audits. The guidelines provide detailed descriptions of potential pedestrian safety issues. 

Although Road Safety Audit does look at scheme design from the road users points of view, it is fundamentally different to a road user audit - which has the primary objective of representing a road user group (pedestrians, cyclists or people with disabilities) to ensure they have been adequately catered for within a scheme. The Highways Agency (HA) has published a separate standard (HA, 2005) describing how to undertake road user audits for non-motorised users on trunk road and motorway schemes. 

The document states that a Road Safety Audit of the pedestrian guardrail should be undertaken with the assumption that all of it is to be removed. 

FHWA (2007) Pedestrian Road Safety Audit Guidelines and Prompt Lists. FHWA, Washington, DC, USA. FHWA-SA-07-007. 

In carrying out the process of collating and comparing their individual findings, members of the quality audit team focused on a number of general subject areas, some leading to more discussion than others. For example, there was extended discussion on the types of pedestrian crossing points, traffic capacity and construction materials. 

Road Safety Auditors who regularly carry out Road Safety Audits on 20 or 30 highway improvement schemes every year soon build up expertise in the work. They will be well used to auditing schemes with new roundabouts, traffic signals and pedestrian crossings, and will be familiar with associated traffic signs and road markings. If they have concerns about the safety of elements of such schemes, they can look at the collision record of similar schemes or examine published research. However, they may also have to carry out a Road Safety Audit on an unfamiliar type of scheme for which there is little or no safety record available. 

There is almost certainly no definitive collision research into this topic, as the STATS19 form used by the police to record injury collisions does not report on the visual acuity of a pedestrian involved in a collision, and does not record details of any tactile paving present. The Road Safety Audit is therefore more likely to be an intuitive approach in which the safety needs of each user are role played in relation to likely conflicts that could arise. The need to audit what you see rather than audit based on stereotypical or hypothetical concerns is really important here. 

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