1. Road Safety Audit Time spent: 9 hrs Hossein Naraghi
CE 590 Special Topics
Safety
June 2003

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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”

5. 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

6. 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

7. Safety audit objectives (continued)
Road safety audit can work in two ways:
Removing preventable crash producing elements at the planning or design stage
e.g. inappropriate intersection layouts
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

8. 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

9. Use of road safety audit
The concept of road safety audit emerged initially in Britain in 1980’s
It was one of the key response to the Government’s target of reducing road fatalities by one-third by the year 2000
It was given impetus by the preparation of two key publications
Road Safety Code of Good Practice
Local Authorities Association, 1989
Guidelines for the Safety Audits of Highways
Institution of Highways and Transportation, 1990

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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
Prior agreement to accept safety audit recommendations
Assessment of the audit report by the client
Assessment of the audit report by the designer

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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 road’s 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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