Stage 4 Road Safety Audit

The Road Safety Audit process for schemes led by new developments has been addressed in HD 19/15. The standard states that where highway improvement schemes (as defined in the standard) are carried out on the trunk road and motorway network as part of a development scheme. Road Safety Audits will be carried out as set out in the standard. This means that suitably qualified Road Safety Audit teams should undertake the work and that the commisioning, auditing, reporting and response procedures need to be undertaken in accordance with the standard. For example, the Stage 1 Road Safety Audit process must be completed to the satisfaction of the Project Sponsor before planning consent is given. 

Hampshire County Council is one authority that has adopted the Standard with some variations. For example, the County Council regularly carries out Feasibility Stage Road Safety Audits on large schemes for small schemes the site visit may be carried out by one auditor at Stage 3 the audit team assesses the need to carry out a night-time visit. 

Only one feasibility stage Road Safety Audit was carried out. This stage is not included in the Road Safety Audit Standard but is suggested in the current IfTT Safety Audit Guidelines. 

Some schemes (such as those related to major developments) are sometimes subject to a Feasibility Stage Road Safety Audit prior to the Stage 1 audit, although this is not specifically required on a motorway or trunk road project. 

Figure D. 1 ]ack carrying out a Stage 3 Road Safety Audit on site...

Road Safety Audits in the UK are carried out at specific stages in the design, construction and monitoring phases of a project. 

A site visit should be carried out as part of each Stage of the Road Safety Audit. 

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. 

A number of different plans and schedules often need to be reviewed for a single highway scheme. It is imperative that all plans and other information (e.g. traffic flows, accident details, scheme brief, departures from Standard) are thoroughly examined to check for possible safety problems. Items on different plans must be checked for consistency. At later stages during the Road Safety Audit process, the Road Safety Auditor should consult reports written at previous stages of the Road Safety Audit process. These may not have been written by the same Road Safety Audit Team. 

Methodolo for undertaking feasibility Stage, Stage 1 and Stage 2 Road Safety Audits... 

The design organisation or client can ask for an Interim Road Safety Audit during the design process so that road safety advice can be obtained before the more formal stages of design are reached. 

The Road Safety Audit Standard describes these Interim Road Safety Audits as being carried out and reported in the same way as the more formal stages of audit. However, it is likely that most nontrunk road schemes will have a less formal approach and the reports will be in the form of brief notes on the particular subject under... 

At Stage 3, it is normal practice for the Road Safety Audit Team to be accompanied by a police officer and a representative of the organisation that will be responsible for future maintenance. These... 

The list below describes a working method for carrjnng out Stage 3 Road Safety Audits. 

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. 

The number of Stage 4 Road Safety Audits is very low. It could be that local authorities are imdertaking these audits themselves as they have the necessary after accident data. On the other hand it may be that very few organisations are imdertaking Stage 4 Audits at present. 

In British Columbia, New Brunswick and Alberta, Road Safety Audits have been successfully used on three Public—Private Partnership highway projects. These routes had Road Safety Audits conducted at all stages of design and construction. The auditors were an integral part of the bidding, design and build process. This type of project usually has a well-defined design-build specification. Experience has shown that this document must have the safety aspects and the safety risk well defined. 

The safety problem was discussed but not submitted in the Road Safety Audit Report. It may have been submitted as a problem at a previous stage of Road Safety Audit and rejected in a corresponding Exception Report. 

In case any of these scenarios develop. Road Safety Auditors are advised to maintain good records of their Road Safety Audit process, including any checklists used during the process, and to spell out precisely what information has been used for Road Safety Audit purposes. In the case of receiving an Exception Report on a problem at an early stage of the Road Safety Audit, Road Safety Auditors are advised to repeat the road safety problem at subsequent stages. 

Mechanisms need to be in place to ensure that the developer funds any work that needs to be carried out as a result of Road Safety Audits. This is particularly important following the completion of Stage 3 and Stage 4 Road Safety Audits. 

As this type of scheme may be new to a local authority, it is very important that the scheme is properly monitored. Stage 4 Road Safety Audits should be carried out after one and three years, and results carefully considered. This monitoring will be very important in the design of future schemes. 

Adding these costs together (assuming an audit is carried out at three stages) would give costs in the order of 10 000 per scheme, although a Road Safety Audit should be seen as part of the scheme design process and cost, rather than additional. 

The success of a Road Safety Audit can be measured not only by cost-benefit analysis but also by the proportion of problems and recommendations that are accepted by a client. Road Safety Audit recommendations should be relative to the problem and the stage of the design to ensure that a high percentage of comments are not rejected. 

Transport for London (TfL) has procedures for carrying out Road Safety Audits in the capital (TfL, 2014). These procedures are intended for use on the TfL Road Network (TLRN) but are also commended to the London boroughs for use on their own roads. The TfL procedures are very similar to the HA standard, but allow for issues beyond the scope of the Safety Audit to be included in the Road Safety Audit report, and allow night-time visits on Stage 3 Road Safety Audits to be postponed in certain circumstances. 

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