How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit

How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit 2.
How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit – an
International Perspective (Session 2.1)
Paul Hillier
This Presentation
• Title is ‘how to conduct an audit’, but…….?
• Will not duplicate too much detail from Day 1
• Focus on context and contemporary issues
• A mix of key points / principles and personal thoughts
• Not necessarily ‘standard’ / textbook view – some challenging
of existing thinking
f i ti thi ki
• Aiming to provoke some thought
• Future directions?
1
How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit 2.1
Road Safety – ‘RSA in Context’
Ukraine
1 25 million
1.25
fatalities per annum
2
≈ 3,500
3 500
fatalities per day
x9
5
3
Fatalities
Serious
Injury
Injury
Near misses
2 3% of GDP
2-3%
4
50% of global fatalities

involve pedestrians
(22%) cyclists (5%) and
(22%),
motorcyclists (23%)
10
5
11
12
6
13
14
7
Australia
1,187 in 2013
1,166 in 2014
1,209 in 12
mths to Oct 15
5.1 / 100k pop
15
Australia
16
8
Question?
Can we have a totally risk free road
environment?
Yes or No?
9
‘Dormancy’
The ‘Safest’ roads . . .
• Warn user of any substandard/unusual features

• Inform the user of conditions to be encountered
• Guide the user through unusual sections
• Control the user’s passage through conflict points
or conflict sections
• Forgive a user’s
user s errant/inappropriate behaviour
• No surprises or ‘traps’!
20
10
The Golden Rule!
• Do no harm!
• We should never consciously set out to
h ld l
make a situation or position worse!!
Key principles …….
22
11
If Provide, Must Maintain !!
23
RS Engineering – Classic Approach
24
12
Complementary contemporary approach
• Proactive & predictive approaches have emerged
• COMPLEMENTARY
• Reducing incident incidence and severity
• Approach have obvious advantages
• Focus on understanding risk
• Greater understanding of performance
countermeasures and true crash costs
t dt h t
• Heavily reliant on research and data
• Hard to justify / ‘sell’ treating locations
where nothing has happened yet?
25
RS Engineering – Contemporary Approach
26
13
RS Engineering – Contemporary Approach
27
Why do we conduct RSAs?
• New roads are not always as safe as they should or can be!
– potential safety problems are often overlooked during design, or
– over reliance on technical standards and/or technical standards do not
‘match up’ or work together well ‐ no guarantee of safety
– technical standards not understood and/or implemented correctly
– quality and/or experience of designers
• Designing a road is a hard task!
– there are many factors to consider ….
– does the designer have all the factors / local issues?
– can we expect the designer to address everything?
28
14
In Summary…..
• RSAs are ‘our insurance policy’
• Much easier (& cheaper!) to change a design plan than to discover
Much easier (& cheaper!) to change a design plan than to discover
issues & end up having to change the road once built/open
29
Wider aims of a RSA…
• Safer Roads and Roadsides ‐ to ensure all h’way schemes are

consistent and operate as safely as practically possible
consistent and operate as safely as practically possible
• to minimise crash numbers and their severity (Safe System approach)
• to consider the safety of all road users – especially vulnerable road

users and where traffic is mixed
• feedback
feedback opportunity ‐
opportunity to help continually improve the awareness of
to help continually improve the awareness of
safe design practices by design, construction and maintenance staff
30
15
What An RSA Is Not….
• an opportunity to redesign a scheme
• a technical check on the designer’s competence
t h i l h k th d i ’ t
• a technical compliance audit
• a design standards/structural safety check
• an assessment of the merits (or otherwise) of the scheme
31
The Main Situations Audited?
• basically, anything can be audited!
• [[we will discuss ‘other’ audits a bit later]]
• new road/ highway construction
• permanent changes to existing highway layout/ features
• major and minor highway schemes
• traffic management schemes
• development schemes
• highway maintenance schemes
• temporary traffic management schemes
32
16
The Main Situations Audited?
• new freeways
• major divided roads
• reconstruction
• realignment projects
• intersection projects
• deviated local roads
• LATM and their components
• signal upgrading
• subdivision proposals
33
What Does The Pertinent Local Policy Say?
Ref. RMS of NSW
17
Typical Costs?
• for a large scale project, typically 4‐10% of the road design costs
(but can be much less)
• which equates to typically about 0.5% of total project costs for
larger projects
• the cost of rectifying any inadequacies identified by RSA depends
on how early in the design process they are identified & the
consequent amount of redundant design time. Earlier the better !
• compared to the cost of crashes?
35
Cost Benefit Studies…..
• Lots of studies out there
• Mainly to RSA of existing roads & BCRs of treatments
M i l t RSA f i ti d & BCR f t t t
• Compelling Australian study:
36:1 benefit for design stage audits
6:1 benefit for existing road audits
(ref. World Bank paper by Deng et al. 2012)
18
Legal Implications
• Civil liability ‐ general increase in awareness of RSA process
• National / State / Local policies:
– Do they exist?
– Any mandatory requirements?
– What does it require?
– Achievable?
– Demonstrable?
• Personal (professional) responsibility?
37
Recent Developments
i RSA i A t li
in RSA in Australia
19
39
Checklists – pros and cons?
• Myriad of checklists available
• Typically extensive (more extensive than prompt lists)
Typically extensive (more extensive than prompt lists)
• Wide range of issues (but not all?)
• Mainly for less experienced auditors to ensure coverage
• No substitute for ‘experience by doing’ and mentoring
• Disadvantages (?):
– can make audits mechanical and rigid
g
– need to think about the whole road system
– need to think like a road user
– can prompt ‘finding a problem for a solution’
20
Moving towards Prompt Lists?
• A new concept….
• With existing road audits in mind
With existing road audits in mind
• At end of the physical audit
• Asks auditor ‘have you done X,Y,Z ?’
• Sign off what has been done / not done
• Provides clarity and audit trail
41
42
21
Focus on the key documents
• Audit brief / scope
Audit brief / scope
• Supporting documentation data
• Audit report (findings)
• Audit report (actions)
• Close (sign off)
• Lessons learnt
‘Lessons learnt’
• Record keeping / archiving
43
Image sourced from: STFS
Monitoring and evaluation
• Essential
• What has worked?
What has worked?
• What hasn’t?
• Improve safety
• Allow innovation
• Gain from efficiencies
• p g
Improve designs
• Update standards and guides
• Organisation and wider industry
Image sourced from: http://www.alexanderbrookes.com/wp- 44

content/uploads/2012/05/iStock_000015678872Small.jpg
22
Understanding Where Can It Go Wrong!
Getting Audits Commissioned and Done
23
Quality of Audits / Auditors / Recommendations
47
We’ve need to
save more lives
on our roads –
RSA will help!
AFRICA ‐ MEDITERRANEAN Marrakech h 19‐20 March 2013
ONAL CONFERENCE
Traffic Asset Network

Management Management Planning
IRF REGIO
NORTH A
48
24
Closing the loop…..
49
Spot the disconnect…..
50
25
Spot the disconnect…..
51
Why does this occur?
The weak link in the chain
Fi
Financial
i l
• responsibility? (who pays?)
• eats into profit
• competing demands?
Not understanding the process
52
26
Any solutions?
• contract terms (set %?)
t tt ( t %?)
• ring fencing of funds
• legislation / penalties
• importance of prioritisation
• g/ p y g
training / capacity building
53
Contemporary issues in RSA
54
27
Contemporary issues…..
• Technology
• Existing road audits / road safety inspections
• Auditor
– training
– min. requirements
– accreditation/certification
Ref. Cielocanada
– retention
• Integration of RSA – risk models – safe system approach
55
Who? General Requirements
56
28
Who? Formal Requirements
• Prior K,S,E
• RSA qualification?
• Certification
• Accreditation
• Practice / experience
• ‘Ranking’ ‐ Lead, senior, auditor
• Varies by jurisdiction / country
Auditor requirements
• Need for harmonisation
• National
National
• International?
• Who? (Austroads / SoRSA)
• Austroads guide update
minimum requirements?
Images sourced from: F-secure & IRC 58
29
Audit Team Leader – draft min. requirements?
Austroads, 2015 - Draft
59
But, Let’s Also Think Practically….
30
Let’s Not Make Life Too Hard For Ourselves
• Use the K,S,E you have….
• Be part of a team – share, discuss, debate
Be part of a team – share discuss debate
• ‘Do you see what I see?’
• Memory guru (standards, guidelines etc.) –v‐ desk study?
Key Questions?
• What will cause someone to get injured here one day?
• What manouevre/s?
What manouevre/s?
• What road user group/s will be affected?
• Where on the site ?
• What is the likely chain of events?
• What is the likely end result/s (outcomes)?
• y g p
What level of severity might we expect?
• Does this risk/hazard apply all the time? (e.g. time of day,
direction of travel)
• (What can be done about it?)
31
Communicating More Effectively
PTH’s Tips?
• Establish who the primary road users are
• Keep it simple!
Keep it simple!
• Don’t be afraid to say the obvious
• “Say what you see”!
• First impressions often very important
• Trust yourself / back yourself
• y p
Use your experience as a road user
• Consult others
• Consult technical references
• Write to express, not impress!
32
Closing
Cl i
Close
Remarks
65
66
33

How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How to Conduct a Road Safety Audit 2.

50% of global fatalities

5.1 / 100k pop

• Warn user of any substandard/unusual features

• Safer Roads and Roadsides ‐ to ensure all h’way schemes are

• to consider the safety of all road users – especially vulnerable road

Ref. RMS of NSW

Image sourced from: http://www.alexanderbrookes.com/wp- 44

Traffic Asset Network

Images sourced from: F-secure & IRC 58

Austroads, 2015 - Draft

You might also like