European Union Road Federation (ERF) International Road Federation – Brussels Programme Centre...

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International Road Federation – Brussels Programme Centre

INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY MANAGEMENT.INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY MANAGEMENT.THE ROLE OF ROAD SAFETY AUDITS AND INSPECTIONSTHE ROLE OF ROAD SAFETY AUDITS AND INSPECTIONS

H. Machado Jorge, Ph.D.On behalf of

ERF - European Union Road Federation

WORKSHOP ONEU TRANSPORT POLICY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Ankara, Turkey19-20 September 2006

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1st SEMESTER 20061st SEMESTER 2006 EU HALLMARK on INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY EU HALLMARK on INFRASTRUCTURE SAFETY

• The EU Council of Ministers Austrian Presidency’s 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.

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TOOLS forTOOLS forINFRASTRUCTURE, ROAD and NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, ROAD and NETWORK

SAFETY MANAGEMENTSAFETY MANAGEMENT

• Road Safety Impact Assessment (RIA)

• Road Safety Audit (RSA)

• Road Safety Inspection (RSI)

• Network Safety Management

• High Risk Site (Black Spot) Management

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TOOL DEFINITION (I)TOOL DEFINITION (I)

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 IMPACT ASSESSMENT (RIA)

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.

ROAD SAFETY AUDIT (RSA)

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TOOL DEFINITION (II)TOOL DEFINITION (II)

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.

ROAD SAFETY INSPECTION (RSI)

Safety development of the road network in operation shall consist of management of high-risk road sections and network safety management.

NETWORK SAFETY MANAGEMENT and HIGH RISK (BLACK SPOT) MANAGEMENT

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TOOL DEFINITION (III)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.

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APPROACHES TOAPPROACHES TOINFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (I)INFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (I)

The Swedish Road Administration’s 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.”

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APPROACHES TOAPPROACHES TOINFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (II)INFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (II)

System designers’ responsibilitiesversus 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.

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APPROACHES TOAPPROACHES TOINFRASTRUCTURE AND ROAD SAFETY (III)INFRASTRUCTURE 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.

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ROAD SAFETY AUDITING (I)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 auditor’s recommendations. That, though, depends on national legislation.

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ROAD SAFETY AUDITING (II)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.

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ROAD SAFETY INSPECTIONS (I)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:

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

o 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.

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ROAD SAFETY INSPECTIONS (II)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).

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FUTURE NEEDS FOR FIGHTING LOSS OF LIVES…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.

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… … BUT FUNDAMENTALS CANNOT BE MISSEDBUT FUNDAMENTALS CANNOT BE MISSED

• 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.

The critical speed limits

• 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.

Testing shows that:

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BOLDER APPROACHESBOLDER 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.

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CLOSING REMARKSCLOSING 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.

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CLOSING REMARKS (cont.)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.

European Union Road Federation (ERF) International Road Federation – Brussels Programme Centre...

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