Safe System Approach

The Safe System approach is a fundamental shift from traditional traffic safety thinking. It reframes the ways in which traffic safety is viewed and managed. Its aim is to support development of a transport system better able to accommodate inevitable human error. The recognition that humans do make, and will continue to make, errors of judgement as road users is one of the core shifts in thinking. 

Adapting our road transport system to respond to inevitable human error can best be achieved through better management of crash energy, so that when an error that leads to a crash occurs, no individual road user is exposed to a level of crash forces that exceeds the capacity of the human body to withstand. 

The Safe System relies on considering a number of key cornerstones, which contribute together in any crash to the severity of the outcome. However, the benefit of the Safe System approach is that action taken in each cornerstone area can often be applied together in a complementary way. Careful planning of the potential individual adjustments that could be effectively applied at particular locations, or preferably at locations or along lengths across the network, can maximise the traffic safety performance benefits achieved. 

It is a key challenge for every traffic safety agency to establish a deep understanding of the critical factors in the road and traffic environment, vehicles and travel speeds that lead to the four most prevalent serious injury crash types. Then the challenge over time is to implement innovative and appropriate measures to take advantage of the opportunities to reduce kinetic energy exchange when crashes do occur. 

The Safe System cornerstones that are conventionally discussed are 

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The Safe System approach has been fully adopted in countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia, and is being pursued in Canada (Road Safety Strategy 2015) and in the United States (Toward Zero strategy). Further, it has been endorsed and recommended to aU countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its 2008 report Towards Zero Ambitious Road Safety Targets and the Safe System Approach (OECD/ITF, 2008). For a more detailed examination of the Safe System approach to road safety and a discussion of the implications of behavioural adaptation that may take place among organisations, see Chapter 22. 

Policies that relate to road users and their behaviour fall within the safer road users category of the Safe System approach to road safety. Within a safe road system, road safety authorities and road users are understood to share the responsibility of using the system safely and responsibly. Behavioural adaptation to road user-related policies can potentially take many forms, and so it is best if consideration of the potential for behavioural adaptation is conducted on a case-by-case basis. In this section, four examples of behavioural adaptation to road user policies are presented the requirement for vehicle occupants to wear seat belts, bans on mobile phone use by drivers, policies related to impaired driving, and the use of road safety cameras to monitor and change driver behaviour. 

Road safety policy, when considered in terms of the Safe System approach to road safety, can be designed to target safer vehicles , safer roads and roadsides , and safer road users . Based on the safer vehicles and safer road users examples reviewed above, as well as the safer roads and roadsides examples reviewed in Chapter 7, it is clear that behavioural adaptation can, and does, occur in response to the introduction of road safety-related policy. What is apparent is that, through their likely impacts on road user attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, and/ or motivation, some road safety policies are more likely to result in behavioural adaptation than others. 

OECD/ITF 2008. Towards Zero Ambitious Road Safety Targets and the Safe System Approach. Summary Report. Paris Joint Transport Research Centre of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Transport Forum (O. Puhlishing). 

Execution of a Safe System Approach and Behavioural Adaptations... 

This chapter discusses road traffic risks in a general sense and the possibilities that exist for managing these risks. This is followed by a brief introduction to road safety management. The Safe System approach to road safety management is introduced next this type of approach, which is currently used in Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden, is discussed and the similarities and differences among the three countries approaches identified. The chapter concludes with some lessons to be learned about the behavioural adaptation of organizations in relation to executing road safety policy, especially where policy is based on the Safe System approach. 

However, this approach may turn out to be suboptimal, because ultimately interventions are judged on their own merit. Focus, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency can be dealt with when designing a strategy (document) and defining tasks for stakeholders, resulting in their commitment. Management literature tells us that organizations execute policies more effectively if they can do so stand-alone. However, poor coordination remains a critical issue for effective road safety policies and deserves special attention. This is one of the considerations on which the development of the Safe System approach was based. 

These days, three countries— Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden—have made the Safe System approach a formal part of their road safety strategy. Many more countries claim to also embrace the Safe System strategy, albeit in the context of their own interpretation. It seems, therefore, that instead of expecting a... 

A brief description of the Safe System approach as it is used in each of the three above countries follows, with the aim of illustrating the underlying concepts, while at the same time indicating the similarities and differences among the three strategy implementations. 

EXECUTION OF A SAFE SYSTEM APPROACH AND BEHAVIOURAL ADAPTATIONS OF STAKEHOLDERS... 

Execution of road safety policies that are based on a Safe System approach makes special demands of the road safety management system. In addition to the results focus of individual measures and sets of measures (i.e., are measures and investments effective ), as proposed by Bliss and Breen (2009), this also involves policy and organization-related issues. This chapter particularly discusses the way in which... 

This research was carried out by a working group of the OECD International Transport Foram, composed of experts from several countries. The chapter starts by presenting the basic trends and figures of PTW mobility, use and safety. Then, a comprehensive review of PTW crash contributory factors is presented (user-, vehicle- or infiastracture-related). Subsequently, the integration of PTW in the Safe Systems approach is discussed, with particular focus on the challenges and particularities involved. Finally, the most promising individual measures for the improvement of PTW mobility and safety are outlined. 

Toward an integrated road safety strategy for PTW 7.4.1. The safe systems approach... 

Another characteristic of safe system approaches is consideration of the interactions between the different elements of the system and between the effects of different interventions. Some aspects of this are well recognized, for example, the... 

According to the recommended approach of the OECD s Towards Zero -Ambitious Road Safety Targets and the Safe System Approach [OEC 08], a strategic planning process on the basis of the Safe Systems approach principles can be outlined as follows ... 

This leads to consideration of whether the conventional Safe System approach should be modified by recognizing that, in the short to medium term, motorcycling will remain an inherently risky activity and that measures should be taken to reduce risk. This may result in, for example, strategies that focus more on avoiding crashes, rather than mitigating their effects. 

The Safe System approach assumes that road users will enter the system competent and will take measures to ensure that they remain compliant and alert. Licensing, training, education, enforcement and commimication campaigns are essential tools for improving riding safety. It is also important, in a complementarily way, to enhance the road environment and the vehicles toward this safety objective. 

A safe system approach is required to improve the safety of PTWs... 

The concepts of the safe system approach and the vision of zero accidents are becoming increasingly accepted by researchers, road safety practitioners and stakeholders internationally, and, within these concepts, the challenge to combine road safety with efficient traffic operations and capacity is investigated and promoted to decision makers. 

Part 3 discusses road safety issues of vulnerable road users pedestrians, cyclists, young drivers and PTWs. Decision makers will find the analysis of PTW mobility and safety in the OECD countries useful, which concludes in a number of measures integrated with the development of a safe system approach. Research methodologies are proposed to track multiple people in crowds of pedestrians. Finally, analysis of... 

ITS applications becomes evident, and more frequently researchers and practitioners are applying a universal approach and interdisciplinary methodologies to address transport related issues, including global approaches in modeling. Furthermore, special focus is given to sustainability of presented traffic and safety solutions with special emphasis to the needs of vulnerable road users and to new concepts such as the safe system approach. 

Set ambitious yet feasible national road traffic casualty reduction targets that are clearly linked to planned investments and policy initiatives and mobilize the necessary resources to enable effective and sustainable implementation to achieve targets in the framework of a safe systems approach ... 

The final form of the Australian strategy was achieved by consensus. Some states in their local safety strategies were prepared to go further. The Western Australian minister for road safety, in tabling his state s Towards Zero—Road Safety Strategy 2009-2020 in the WA parliament (March 2009), provided a strong endorsement of the Safe System approach when he commented ... 

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