International Road Federation Brussels Programme Centre Page 1

1
INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY MANAGEMENT.THE ROLE OF
ROAD SAFETY AUDITS AND INSPECTIONS
H. Machado Jorge, Ph.D. On behalf of ERF -
European Union Road Federation
WORKSHOP ON EU TRANSPORT POLICY AND
INFRASTRUCTURE Ankara, Turkey 19-20 September
2006
2
1st SEMESTER 2006 EU HALLMARK on INFRASTRUCTURE
SAFETY

• The EU Council of Ministers Austrian
  Presidencys initiative High Level Expert
  Meeting on Infrastructure Safety, Vienna,
  24-25 January 2006

• Factual knowledge of infrastructure safety
  concepts and practices across the EU.

• A clear perception of the limits of common
  practice in respect of infrastructure safety in
  the EU.

3
TOOLS forINFRASTRUCTURE, ROAD and NETWORK
SAFETY MANAGEMENT

• Road Safety Impact Assessment (RIA)

• Road Safety Audit (RSA)

• Road Safety Inspection (RSI)

• Network Safety Management

• High Risk Site (Black Spot) Management

4
TOOL DEFINITION (I)
ROAD SAFETY IMPACT ASSESSMENT (RIA)
Road Safety Impact Assessment designates a
comparative scenario analysis of the impact that
different variants of alignment or
interconnection points of new roads or a
substantial modification to the existing network
will have on the safety performance of the
adjacent road network. It is concluded before the
alignment is decided.
ROAD SAFETY AUDIT (RSA)
Road Safety Audit means a systematic independent
safety analysis of the design characteristics of
a road project, either new or rehabilitation, at
different stages of planning, design and early
operation.
5
TOOL DEFINITION (II)
ROAD SAFETY INSPECTION (RSI)
Road Safety Inspection designates a periodical
review of a road network in operation by trained
experts from a safety point of view. It involves
visiting the road network.
NETWORK SAFETY MANAGEMENT and HIGH RISK (BLACK
SPOT) MANAGEMENT
Safety development of the road network in
operation shall consist of management of
high-risk road sections and network safety
management.
6
TOOL DEFINITION (III)
Management of high-risk road sections is to
reduce future accidents by targeting remedial
treatment to parts of the road network where
accidents occurred most frequently during
previous years.
Network safety management is to reduce future
accidents targeting remedial treatment to
sections of the road network where accidents cost
reduction potential is highest.
7
APPROACHES TOINFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (I)
The Swedish Road Administrations Vision Zero
Approach. A few quotes (with emphasis added)
Systems designers are responsible for the
design, operation and the use of the road
transport system and are thereby responsible for
the level of safety within the entire system.
Road users are responsible for following the
rules for using the road transport system set by
the system designers.
If the users fail to comply with these rules due
to a lack of knowledge, acceptance or ability,
the system designers are required to take the
necessary further steps to counteract people
being killed or injured.
8
APPROACHES TOINFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (II)
System designers responsibilities versus real
life practicalities
Going by the book, i.e. sticking to the
engineering standards in force, is a defensive
approach for (most? all?) road designers.
Actually, road safety is not solely engineering.
It cannot be mastered without an insight on road
users perceptions and attitudes. So it calls for
input from other knowledge fields.
Moreover, road safety being a modest contributor
to overall project cost tends to be dealt with as
an end of line incumbency, not seldom assigned to
the more junior road design team members.
9
APPROACHES TOINFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (III)
Limitations of design standards the Impact
Severity Level Class C conundrum
Harmonized standards tend to reflect the
technical state of the art, though with a delay
of typically a few years. Hence, they may be a
necessary but not sufficient condition.
Apparently, the EU is currently on the verge of
adopting a standard on road restraint systems
which some European experts and companies see as
going against the assumed goal of reducing road
deaths and serious injuries.
National road administrations have the
responsibility of ensuring that design standards
do support the overriding goal of attenuating
road accident consequences.
10
ROAD SAFETY AUDITING (I)
The roles
The EU countries experience points to the fact
that 30 of problems identified during a road
safety audit will occur within 5 years unless the
recommendations are implemented.
The auditor, as an independent third party,
provides a technical contribution to the
judgement process but decisions remain the sole
responsibility of the client (road
administration, local power authority,).
The client is entitled (or has) to balance safety
against other interests, and that will dictate
the terms of the decision taken.
The client, being always responsible, may be
liable for not following the auditors
recommendations. That, though, depends on
national legislation.
11
ROAD SAFETY AUDITING (II)
Auditor certification
Road safety audits, as of year 2005, have been
implemented in 20 EU countries.
EU regulation, when transposed into national
legislation, will require road safety auditors to
hold a certificate. In turn, this implies having
defined, at national level, training curricula as
well as having provisions for regularly offering
training courses.
Some European countries will impose the
requirement of periodic retraining of auditors
(namely at 3 to 5 years time intervals), for
maintaining the certification.
Moreover, the certification will only remain
valid if the holder is engaged in regular
relevant activity, say, carrying out at least one
road safety audit per year.
12
ROAD SAFETY INSPECTIONS (I)
Theory and practice
There is a vast array of road safety inspection
approaches across Europe. Moreover, in most
countries there is not even legal basis for
conducting road safety inspections.
Level of available resources determines the two
different approaches to road safety inspections
observed in the EU

• Regular examination of the entire road
  network,
• independently of the recorded number of
  accidents or

• Selection of the inspection sites depending on
  the actual
• number of occurred accidents, priority being
  given to
• sections showing an above average accident rate.
  It is
• reasonable to assume that the entire network is
  covered
• every 2 to 3 years.

13
ROAD SAFETY INSPECTIONS (II)
A few practical hints
Road safety inspections are, on the one hand, to
be seen as part of the regular maintenance, but
going beyond the latter.
On the other hand, road safety inspections are to
be clearly separated from road safety auditing.
In particular, inspections should not be limited
to audited road network sections.
The planning and carrying out of road safety
inspections can be very much aided by the
maintenance of appropriate photographic coverage
of the road network. Image records (e.g. 1 image
every 20 m), if kept reasonably updated (e.g.
at every 2 years), can guide the field work,
sparing resources (time and manpower deployment).
14
FUTURE NEEDS FOR FIGHTING LOSS OF LIVES
The EC commitment of halving road accidents
fatalities and serious injuries by 2010 will only
be reachable if a serious effort is invested to
that end. In favour are factors such as the
up-grading of road networks across Europe and
continued improvement of vehicle built-in safety
features. Against are factors such as the ever
increasing car fleets and traffic, as well as the
ageing of national populations.
A trend to follow closely is that of sustained
gains in truck safety, largely due to installed
capabilities, namely, control of distance to the
preceding vehicle and automatic braking (if early
warning is ineffectual) or viewing cameras, for
covering usual blind spots. More is coming along,
e.g. control of driver sleepiness.
15
BUT FUNDAMENTALS CANNOT BE MISSED
The critical speed limits
Testing shows that

• For people with fastened seat belt, on board of
  a recently built car, colliding head-on with a
  similar vehicle or a fixed obstacle, survival
  probability is quite reasonable up to a cruise
  speed of 70 km/h.

• Above that speed, chance of survival dwindles
  quite quickly, if not dramatically.

• For a side collision, the critical speed is 50
  km/h.

• For pedestrians and cyclists the critical
  speed, when hit by a passing car, is just 30
  km/h.

16
BOLDER APPROACHES
The EU funded RIPCORD-ISEREST Project (www.ripcord
-iserest.com) Secondary road types proposal The
project acknowledges that secondary roads in
rural areas are responsible for a large
proportion of fatalities. One possibility would
be to agree on secondary roads design guidelines.
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
(No Transcript)
20
(No Transcript)
21
CLOSING REMARKS
The role of ITS Intelligent Transport Systems
and Services
Seeking to bring down loss of life and injuries
arising from road accidents, cannot be reduced to
a matter of reducing traffic speed. It has to go
much further. Better engineered roads, safer
vehicles, better trained and more defensive
drivers are indispensable, but not just
enough. Technology has a role as well, be it C2C
(car-to-car) communications or VII
(vehicle-infrastructure integration). We may
still mostly be in the days of the VMS (variable
message systems), but much better technology is
already around the corner.
22
CLOSING REMARKS (cont.)
Introducing the new technology is, on the hand,
limited by economic reasons. Highway operators,
in particular, are reluctant to have to invest
more in infrastructure. Therefore, there may be
the need of classifying some such developments as
public goods and expect some degree of State
funding for them. On the other hand, drivers
attitude got to evolve. In particular, the
generalised opposition to more automatic features
in car, such as system initiated braking when
circumstances do call for it (eminence of
collision, for instance). Last but not least , a
granted driving license cannot be seen as a sort
of an acquired right. On the contrary, it ought
to be dealt with as a right to be earned and
maintained according to the personal, safety
performance record.