25th ARRB Conference – Shaping the future: Linking policy, research and outcomes, Perth, Australia 2012

MAIN ROADS ROADSIDE HAZARD RATING

Jan Karpinski, Main Roads Western Australia, Australia

ABSTRACT
Dealing with hazardous roadsides is an important step in achieving a Safe System. In WA on
roads under Main Roads’ control 16.8% of all serious crashes (fatal and hospitalisation) are hit
object crashes.

The Main Roads Roadside Hazard Rating (RHR) was determined from video footage captured
as part of regular network surveys. Using the assessed severity of objects within the roadside
and their measured offset a rating is assigned. The severity is determined by raters identifying
the highest severity hazard (e.g. a tree with a specific diameter, a bridge pier or a drain etc.) at
the location and assigning a rating speed (posted speed limit + 10 km/h to a maximum of
110 km/h) and based on these inputs a severity index is assigned. The offset from the edge of
seal or edge line to the hazard is measured. To date 97.5% of the network that it is be rated has
been and comparisons have been made between the different levels of the RHR and serious
crashes hit object crash rates. It has been found that higher levels of the rating 3 and 4 (i.e.
those that with high severity hazards located close to the edge of the road) have higher fatal
and hospitalisation crash rates (based on number of crashes) than those will a lower rating 1
and 2 (less severe hazards close to the road or high severity hazards further away from the
road). Given that hit object crashes can occur anywhere on the network the RHR is seen to be
an input into the prioritisation of roadside improvements.

This paper discusses the RHR including the capture of the data and how it is has been
analysed.

INTRODUCTION
Dealing with hazardous roadsides is an important step in achieving a Safe System. In WA on
roads under Main Roads’ control 16.8% of all serious (fatal and hospitalisation) crashes are hit
object crashes.

The most common cause of road deaths in regional Western Australia is run-off road crashes.
Western Australia has the second highest fatality rate due to road crashes in Australia. The
fatality rate (road deaths per 100,000 population) of every Main Roads’ Region in 2010 was at
least twice that of the Metropolitan area and more than half of the Regions experienced fatality
rates between 5 and 10 times that of Perth (MRWA 2012a).

Under a Safe System approach it is understood that drivers will make mistakes and that the
system should be forgiving in that neither they nor any vehicle occupants should be killed or
suffer permanent disability due to a mistake. Safe system is about recognising that drivers will
make mistakes and crash locations show where a driver or drivers have previously made a
mistake.

Hit object crashes can occur anywhere on the network and unlike intersection related crashes
there is typically no clustering of crashes and a way of identifying hazardous locations is
required based on the configuration of the roadside rather than use of crash data.

SA 2009 defines roadside as ‘that area between the reserve boundary and the nearest road
shoulder.’ Hazard identification was restricted to roadside hazards and those generally within
10 m due to limitations of the videos which were used to identify the hazards and that these
hazards are considered the highest priority.

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One of the risk management approaches used for roadsides is by the provision of a clear zone.

Austroads (2008) defines the clear zone as:

A clear zone is the area adjacent to the traffic lane that should be kept free from features that would
be potentially hazardous to errant vehicles. The clear zone is a compromise between the recovery
area for every errant vehicle, the cost of providing that area and the probability of an errant vehicle
encountering a hazard. The clear zone should be kept free of non-frangible hazards where
economically and environmentally possible. Alternatively, hazards within the clear zone should be
treated to make them safe or be shielded by a safety barrier.

Assessing the network against the availability of agreed clear zones indicates that much of the
Western Australian state network does not comply. One of the weaknesses of the clear zone
concept is that either the clear zone is provided or not and it does not directly consider the
severity of the roadside which is a critical consideration in terms of prioritisation. For example,
consider a bridge pier and a non traversable drain both within the clear zone, they would be
assessed as both being within the clear zone although one has a much greater severity
outcome than the other.

Within WA the only guidance given on clear zones is contained within the Main Roads design
guides (MRWA 2012b) which are based on those values contained in Austroads and has been
applied mainly for green fields projects. There is no set of reduced clear zone widths for
upgrades. Various studies have been undertaken on the effectiveness of clear zones, one of
which, a study undertaken by the Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR 2010), found
that despite some of the limitations of clear zones ‘roadside barrier protection in combination
with narrower clear zones may provide the most cost effective way to treat rural roadsides to
achieve a safe system.’

Typical roadside hazards are:

 backslope (also referred to as cutting)

 drains (the shape of the drain as well as any objects within it)
 foreslopes (also referred to as embankment or fill)
 vertical drops
 fixed objects – trees, poles, etc.
 culvert Headwalls – which are a specific type of fixed object.

The Main Roads Roadside Hazard Rating (RHR) was determined from video footage captured
as part of regular network surveys. Using the assessed severity of objects within the roadside
and their measured offset a rating is assigned. The severity is determined by raters identifying
the highest severity hazard (e.g. a tree with a specific diameter, a bridge pier or a drain etc.) at
the location and assigning a rating speed (posted speed limit + 10 km/h to a maximum of
110 km/h) and based on these inputs a severity index is assigned. The offset from the edge of
seal or edge line to the hazard is measured.

The intention is for all roads under Main Roads control (with the exception of ramps,
roundabouts, roads within built up areas and unsealed roads) to be rated. To date 97.5% of the
network that it is be rated has been and comparisons have been made between the different
levels of the RHR and serious crashes (fatal and hospitalisation) hit object crash rates. It has
been found that higher levels of the rating 3 and 4 (i.e. those that with high severity hazards
located close to the edge of the road) have higher fatal and hospitalisation crash rates (based
on number of crashes) than those will a lower rating 1 and 2 (less severe hazards close to the
road or high severity hazards further away from the road). Given that hit object crashes can
occur anywhere on the network the RHR is seen to be an input into the prioritisation of roadside
improvements.

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METHOD
The Main Roads Roadside Hazard Rating (RHR) was developed based, in part, on the roadside
component of the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) (AusRAP 2012) road
protection scoring which is used to assign a star rating.

AusRAP had the following levels and descriptions of those levels of severity for run-off road:

 ‘Negligible, minor property damage only.’

 ‘Moderate, intermittent hazard likely to cause moderate damage or injury.’
 ‘Severe, likely to cause fatality or serious injury.’
 ‘Head-on, which is applied to divided carriageways where the median is such that an errant
vehicle could cross the median into oncoming traffic the ‘head on’ severity is used.’

This rating is then used in conjunction with clearance (offset) to the hazard to giving a rating of
1-4. AusRAP identifies the offset to the hazard in three ranges 0-5 m, 5-10 m and 10 m+.
Hazards are not individually identified nor a specific offset determined.

The RHR identifies the hazard at the location and its offset and based on its properties and the
rating speed a severity index is assigned.

The major differences is that the AusRAP was subjective in terms of rating the severity and did
not uniquely identify the hazard at a specified location whereas the RHR is objective as the
hazard is identified, located, severity assigned and offset measured.

The rating system used by AusRAP is similar to that used by the RHR with some minor
adjustments to reflect the more serious type of crash outcomes.

Some work was undertaken between road sections that have been rated using AusRAP and the
RHR and there was generally good correlation although at the time the AusRAP methodology
was not for a continuous rating but rather assessed the roadside as homogenous sections.

The advantage of capturing more detailed information is that it can be used to extract specific
hazard types as well as being able to be aggregated or mapped into different formats.

The RHR is determined based on the offset to the roadside object and its severity (assigned
using the severity indices contained within the 1996 AASHTO Roadside Design Guide
(AASHTO 1996)).

These indices are based on engineering judgement and work undertaken a number of years
ago by the author found that the crash costs given by these indices correlated well with actual
crash costs.

The term ‘Severity Index’ (SI) is used to assign a weighted severity to an object and is a
measure of the expected severity outcome of an impact with the object, based on values
between 0 and 10. A SI of zero anticipates a crash that involves no significant property damage
or injury whereas a SI of 10 anticipates a crash with a 100 percent probability of a fatality. Figure
1 which is based on AASHTO (1996) shows the relative crash outcome for each SI. These
indices are valid for cars only and if the vehicle hits the vehicle upright, i.e. vehicle is not rolling.

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Figure 1: Severity index by crash outcome %

The SI is a function of the hazard, its properties and the rating speed which is taken as the
posted speed limit + 10 km/h to a maximum of 110 km/h.

The offset measured is not the clear zone available at that location, as the clear zone depends
on a number of factors including the roadside slope and the required clear zone is a function of
traffic volumes and road geometry.

Table 1 contains the details of how the RHR is assigned for each hazard based on the offset
and the SI.

When using the videos identification of hazards was generally limited to 10 m due to inaccuracy
in scaling distances. As indicated by Table 1, hazards beyond 10 m including those of high
severity are assigned a lower RHR either rating 1 or 2 and therefore are a lesser concern.

Table 1: Roadside hazard rating criteria

RHR Description of the Severity index Offset (m)

rating RHR rating (1 & 2) (3)
1 Negligible SI <= 3 No matter the offset
1 Negligible SI > 3 ≤ 5.5 > 10 m
2 Minor SI > 3 ≤ 5.5 > 5 <= 10 m
3 Moderate SI > 3 ≤ 5.5 <= 5 m
2 Minor SI > 5.5 > 10 m
3 Moderate SI > 5.5 > 5 <= 10 m
4 High SI > 5.5 <= 5 m

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Note 1: SI 3 is the approximate SI for W Beam road safety barrier being impacted at 100 km/h
by a car (AASHTO 1996).

Note 2: For a SI of 5.5, 13% of crashes result in fatalities; 14% in hospitalisation. The 13%
fatality is close to the 10% used to determine safe speeds in Safe System. For information on
Safe System and safe speed refer to ORS 2012. These safe speeds have a 10% risk of fatality
associated with them.

Note 3: When using the videos identification of hazards was generally limited to 10 m due to
inaccuracy in scaling distances. A high severity hazard beyond 10 m had a rating of 1 or 2, a
lesser concern. The measurement is the offset to the hazard, not the clear zone available at that
location.

Extent of data capture

The entire Main Roads network that had video coverage was rated with the following
exceptions:

 those in a built up environment (e.g. those road sections within townsites or roads within the
Perth Metropolitan area that are not controlled access highway)
 ramps
 roundabouts
 unsealed roads
 roads under construction at the time of the video capture.

Roads within townsites were not rated because:

 in most locations there are numerous roadside hazards with limited opportunity to either
provide a clear zone or install protective devices such as barriers or energy absorbing
bollards because of site constraints (services) or pedestrian/car access
 within townsites there is typically a lower speed limit e.g. ≤ 70 km/h which results in a
reduced hazard severity. Whilst some of these are higher than the severity index of 3 (see
below for explanation of how this is used as a threshold for identification of a hazard) they
are lower than a severity index of 5.5.

Only those road sections with roadside objects with a severity index ≥ 3 were identified as part
of the rating process. A SI of 3 is the approximate value associated with a car impact with W
Beam barrier at 100 km/h. It was considered that any roadside hazard with this SI was
acceptable as W beam barriers are an acceptable treatment (depending on site specific
conditions) if not the preferred barrier type.

The majority of the new barrier installations are wire rope due to lower installation costs and
reduced impact severity. The reduced impact severity is based on full scale crash testing which
shows lower Acceleration Severity Index (this is used to give a measure to the severity of the
vehicle motion during an impact) (AASHTO 2009) values obtained for wire rope when compared
to other barrier types, although other barrier types including W Beam are within acceptable
values.

Therefore there are sections of roads that have been rated which have no roadside hazard
rating data. Once the data was loaded into the corporate database low severity sections are
created only for those road sections which have been rated and for which there is no data.

Hazard identification was restricted to roadside hazards, however, if there were hazards just
outside of the road reserve these have typically been picked up and a comment added that the
hazard is outside of the road reserve, based on the location of the boundary fence.

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Data capture
The required data for the rating is object severity and offset. These were obtained using the
ARRB program Hawkeye data viewer (ARRB 2012) which uses video footage and enables the
user to scale offsets, widths and heights and other required hazard attribute data to be
identified.

At the same time as collecting data for the RHR, additional information was also collected to
expand the information that Main Roads had on its barrier inventory as well as recording the
locations of any roadside memorials that were found on the video. Roadside memorials were
typically a white wooden cross (but sometimes can be more elaborate e.g. motorcycle helmet
fixed to a tree) marking where one or more persons had been killed in a vehicle crash.

The video footage used was either that collected as part of the regular road condition surveys or
from the separate survey that was commissioned to provide side scanning laser data. The
oldest video survey used to determine the RHR data was taken in April 2009 while the more
recent was collected in December 2010. The footage comprised a picture taken every 20 m and
hazard locations where taken to the nearest 10 m interval. Figure 2 shows a typical image with
the calibration grid shown which allows raters to determine how far from the current location a
hazard starts or ends.

Figure 2: Hawkeye calibration grid

Videos are taken in the left (as defined by the direction of the road) and right direction of travel
in typically the left most travel lane. There are a number of different cameras that raters can use
for identification of the hazards (rear driver, rear passenger, front centre, front driver and front
passenger – although in some cases all of these views are not available for every road). For
hazards on the verge side (left in the direction of travel) the front passenger view was used. For
dual carriageways, in order to assess the median, the front driver view was used. As the survey
vehicle was typically in the leftmost lane, the accuracy of the offset and hazard identification in
the median is not as accurate as hazards on the verge.

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At each location raters identified the highest severity hazard at the site and rated it. At many
sites there are multiple hazards.

The offset was measured from either the start of the edge line (the portion of the line closest to
the travelled lane) if present or from the edge of the seal if there was no edge line. The
presence of an edge line was recorded in the spreadsheet and due to the inaccuracy of the
measurements taken from the video, hazards beyond 10 m were generally not identified.
Identification of hazards beyond this offset is of a lesser concern than those closer to the road.
Based on Table 1 hazards beyond 10 m would be rated 1 or 2 regardless of their severity.

In assessing the offset to hazards at auxiliary lanes (turning pockets and acceleration lanes) the
offset from the through lane was used. This approach was taken because:

 In auxiliary lanes the speed may be significantly lower than the though lane and whilst the
offset may be greater this is compensated for by using the higher speed.
 There would be confusion in working out from where the offset was taken from as a lot of the
auxiliary lanes are kerbed (and therefore there is no line marking present on the edge) yet
the through lane has markings and therefore gives a constant point of reference.
 The offset to the hazard may be constantly changing as the lane is developed or terminated.

When rating slopes (backslopes, foreslopes) the raters had to use the tools within the viewer to
measure the width of the slope and its height. In some cases this was a rough approximation
due to the limitations of the video. In terms of assigning the height the severity indices only
provided certain heights and typically raters rounded up to the nearest height, e.g. for a 1 in 3
slope the only height choices available were 0.3, 2, 4, 6, 8 and >= 10 m. Therefore a 1 m
measured height would be assigned a 2 m height.

Side scanning laser data was acquired to be used to provide the offset to the hazard but it was
found that there were limitations associated with the data that made it unsuitable.

These limitations include:

 The offset determined is not relative to any physical attribute on the road. Typically the
survey vehicle drove in the centre of the lane on straights, while around curves the position
of the vehicle varied. In addition to any adjustment made by the driver to the position within
the lane, the lane width varies across the network and in some cases along road sections
and therefore the offset of the laser to the edge of the road was not constant. A laser
measurement is more accurate than a distance scaled from Hawkeye if the reference point is
fixed.
 Side scanning laser data was not available at the commencement of the rating project and
when it did become available (approximately 40% through the rating project) it was not
available for the entire network, specifically the Kimberley and Pilbara Regions, due to cost
considerations.
 The laser is not self levelling and therefore on a road which has either a high crossfall or
superelevation the offset recorded by the laser may not be to the object but rather the natural
ground surface.
 Offsets to hazards such as culverts that run perpendicular to the road or foreslopes
(embankments) typically cannot be determined from the data.
 Because of the sampling rate of the laser there is a vast amount of data collected (typically
an offset was provided every 1 m for a data collection speed of 110 km/h) and although
algorithms were developed to aggregate the data based on a number of different
approaches, it was found that the time to modify the aggregated data by the raters would be
longer than the time required to manually measure the offset albeit it at a lower accuracy.

Each rater had a dual screen set-up, with one screen showing the Hawkeye Data Viewer whilst
the other screen had Excel with the rating spreadsheet. The rating spreadsheet template

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contained a number of features including macros and drop down menus which are explained
below.

A number of macros were developed which automated specific tasks:

 Preloading inventory data that was used to assist in identifying speed limits and hazards
(e.g. barriers, bridges, culverts, floodways, railway crossing locations) as well as network
attributes such as control point locations and road configuration (e.g. single or dual
carriageway sections).
 Manipulated data that was copied from Hawkeye (e.g. locations of hazards) and modified the
location data by increments of 10 m to match the location of the displayed hazard within the
video frame.
 Checking of the data to ensure that all of the required data was entered and that it was
sensible e.g. that the side of the hazard matched the video direction, barrier terminals
matched specific barrier types, barrier heights were within likely tolerances etc.

Most of the data entered by the raters was selected from drop down menus which standardised
the data collected and if the rater selected the appropriate attributes for the hazard being rated,
a severity index was automatically generated.

Table 2 shows the data that the raters need to determine for the various hazard types.

Table 2: Hazard data

Hazard type Attributes

Assessed as low severity
Backslope (also referred to as
cutting)
Culvert headwall
Drain
Fixed object
Foreslope (also referred to as
embankment or fill)
Foreslope vertical (vertical drop)
This is created automatically as ‘infills’ for road sections
that have been rated.
Height, slope and surface condition.
Height, type and impact condition (i.e. direction of impact
for those culverts where this changes the severity).
Foreslope, backslope and depth.
All currently accepted barriers (both barriers and
terminals were uniquely identified in terms of type and in
addition to the RHR were used to capture barrier
inventory), non crashworthy terminals, trees, utility
poles, poles, various object sizes (diameter, height and
width if applicable).
Height, slope and surface condition.
Height and depth of water if present.

Surface condition was used for backslopes and foreslopes to identify presence of vegetation,
rock protection, gullies and increased the severity index of the backslope or foreslope.

If at a location there was a balustrade or a wooden barricade (this may occur on a bridge as well
as at roadside locations) then that hazard behind was typically rated. For a bridge the hazard
may be the vertical drop associated with the bridge. Figure 3 is an example of such an instance.

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Figure 3: Wooden barricade

Resourcing and timing

The RHR is a snapshot of the roadside severity and it is not proposed that the data be updated.

If there was a need to update the information, locations for rerating could be identified through
various corporate databases.

Resources used on the project were a mixture of internal and external staff. Main Roads’
internal staff was mainly engineering cadets on vocational work experience or engineering
assistants or graduate engineers on rotation through the branch and the external staff were
contractors engaged from labour hire companies.

Through the course of the project the average rating achieved by the external staff per day was
22 km/day/rater with some achieving 40 km/day.

Actual time required for rating depended on the frequency of hazards and consistency of offset.
As an example, if the roadside was consistent i.e. at a constant offset and hazard type this was
quicker to rate than a roadside which had infrequent hazards occurring with different offsets.

The project commenced in April 2010 with a single rater working with a prototype spreadsheet
and between April and November 2010 modifications to the methodology were made to the
rating process and the spreadsheet, to speed up the process and to address various issues that
arose.

For example, in order to assist in locating the data on the Main Road networks, latitudes and
longitudes of the control points had to be included into the spreadsheet and it was decided that
the barrier inventory was to include bridge barriers as well as roadside barriers which required
additional information to be captured.

In November 2010 a team of vocation work experience engineering cadets commenced data
collection in earnest and within the space of 3 months 30% of the overall MRWA network (by

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length) was rated. This was predominantly the northern part of the state where roadsides were
not as intense.

In March 2011 external contractors were brought on board to complete the rating which was
finally completed in April 2012. Staff turnover was an issue and in the end a total of 9 external
raters were used throughout the course of the project (3 of whom did not make it beyond the
training stage).

Training of raters was very intensive as raters had to be trained not only in the software but also
on Main Roads referencing systems and corporate data as well as hazard identification. It took
1-2 weeks of training including calibration ratings, and then another two weeks of actual rating
before raters become proficient.

Limitations of capturing of data from video

There are limitations associated with capturing information from videos. During the course of
this project the following limitations became apparent:

 Measurement of slopes are approximate at best and it is particularly difficult to estimate the
slope for those roads which are superelevated with the left edge of the road (as determined
by the direction of travel) being raised as the view of the embankment slope is restricted due
to the road slope.
 Similarly to the bullet point above, the severity of other hazard types, e.g. culverts, may be
unable to be appreciated via the video. Raters can only rate the hazards they can see.
 Rating vegetation, in particular shrubs, is difficult as in many cases the size of the trunk may
not be clearly visible and the rigidity of the shrub will be dependent not only on its size but
also the root structure of the species. Raters were asked to err on the side of caution and
therefore smaller shrubs may have been rated with a larger diameter than they may in
actually have.
 There is inaccuracy in the measurement of the offset to the hazard based on how exactly the
rater is measuring the offset. For barrier locations it is estimated that the accuracy of the
measurement is within 0.5 m. Whilst it may not affect the severity of the roadside object it
was found that the height of the barriers (based on a series of field audits) was typically
within 50 – 100 mm.
 Video was not available for the entire network. On a number of roads, even though video
was available for the road, because of a network change, e.g. introduction of a new
intersection, the data could not be aligned to the network.

In identifying roadside objects and in particular trees, the object properties (in this case
diameter) were used for assigning the rating. As the rating is a snapshot in time there may be an
increase in the object properties and therefore a change in the severity. There is a significant
change in the SI from a 150 mm dia (3.2) as opposed to 300 mm (6.4) which depending on the
location of the object could mean the difference between the object being rated as (minor)
versus 3 (moderate).

Data storage and accessibility

The data is stored in the Main Roads Corporate Database (IRIS – Integrated Road Information
System).

Before the data could be loaded it needed to be manipulated and massaged into a suitable
format. The massaging of the data involves making modifications to the data based on the
information collected by the raters. Some examples are:

 Where road safety barriers have a terminal that is non crashworthy, the barrier is split into a
non crashworthy terminal (and given a default length of 10 m) and the length of the barrier

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adjusted accordingly. On single carriageways both the approach and departure terminals are
assessed for crashworthiness but on dual carriageways only the approach terminal is
assessed. On some dual carriageways it may be possible to hit the departure terminal of a
barrier on a median depending on the road configuration.
 During the rating some objects (e.g. culverts, trees, utility poles, etc.) were treated as a point
item (i.e. had no length). In order to load the data into IRIS these were given a default length
of 10 m. This leads to a longer length of hazards but it should be understood that the typical
vehicle swath path is around 4 m for a passenger vehicle and most objects can be hit in both
directions.
 Dealing with overlapping hazards. In some situations there are overlapping hazards in the
roadside e.g. a line of trees which has a culvert headwall in front of them. Rather than getting
the raters to have to break the line of trees manually and create a record for the culvert
headwall the line of trees is recorded as a single hazard (rather than as two separate
records) and the culvert is recorded at its proper location. The macro then splits the line of
trees into two records and inserts the culvert at its recorded location.

Reports have been developed to allow users to extract the data for a road section or for the
entire state based on user provided parameters e.g. specific hazard type such as non
crashworthy terminals, locations with RHR 3 or greater etc.

The data can also be extracted electronically to enable further analysis (e.g. there are options of
providing the information in Excel or as CSV files) or can be mapped and combined with other
data sets.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Analysis of the locations of all hit object crashes with a severity of fatal and hospital on the Main
Roads network for a five year period from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2010 was made
against the RHR rating of 1 to 4. These crashes are at the unit level not the occupant level .i.e. if
a crash involved a double fatality, or a fatality and a hospitalisation, only the highest level of
outcome was recorded and for both of these cases a single fatality would be recorded.

Figure 4 shows how the comparison was made, essentially the side and location of the crash
was compared to the RHR at that location and all of the fatal and hospital crashes were then
assigned the appropriate RHR. In the figure, for clarity only errant vehicles leaving the road and
ending up on the left side are shown. For dual carriageways the median is also considered and
can have a different rating for each carriageway.

In order to match the side of the crash to the side of the RHR a methodology was developed
which used the road user movement (RUM) codes, the direction of travel of the colliding vehicle
and the event location to correctly identify the side on which the hit object crash occurred and
match it with the side of the RHR data.

Of the 1164 off road hit object crashes that occurred on the Main Roads network between
1 January 2006 and 31 December 2010:

 61 (5.2%) of the crashes had invalid combination of RUM and event location
 14 (1.2%) had no colliding vehicle direction of origin
 10 (0.9%) had incorrect colliding vehicle direction of origin.

Using the developed methodology this data was corrected and a new item called ‘side’ was
created using a combination of RUM, event location, carriageway and colliding vehicle direction
of origin. This ‘side’ was matched with the RHR side.

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Figure 4: Comparisons of FSI crashes and RHR

Using Main Roads’ crash costs, which are based on willingness to pay, as shown in Table 3 this
was combined with the analysis of the data to produce Table 4.

Table 3: Main Roads WA willingness to pay crash costs

Crash severity Rate (Dec 2010)

Fatal $7,197,860
Hospital $344,164
Medical $71,534
Major damage $10,777
Minor damage $10,777

Table 4 shows some preliminary analysis of data showing the crash rates for the various
severity outcomes (killed (fatal), hospital (seriously injured) shown individually and then
combined (KSI)). This analysis will be repeated once the entire network has been rated and
located onto the MRWA network and future analysis will include calculation of the crash rates
per MVKT for each RHR level.

In order to be able to compare the relative performance of roadsides for the RHR being
considered the crash rate for sections rated 1 was taken as the base and relative factors were
calculated for the other three levels of the rating compared to this base. For fatal crashes the
crash rate for the RHR 1 is 0.0027 fatal crashes/km and the rate for RHR 4 is 0.0086 fatal
crashes/km, therefore the factor is 0.0086/0.0027 = 3.1. This was repeated for all levels of the
RHR and for the different severity outcomes. A similar process was repeated for the crash costs

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for the each RHR level. Table 4 is preliminary information and is in the process of being verified
which may change some of the factors. One issue which would impact on the factors is RHR
and crash data for built up areas or road sections not actually rated having mistakenly been in
filled with low severity data which would alter the length of the network assessed as RHR 1.

From Table 4 it can be seen that there is a marked difference in performance between the RHR
and fatal and hospital crash outcomes, i.e. for fatal crashes the relative factors for RHR 4, 3,
and 2 are respectively 3.2, 2.1 and 0.7. The relative factor for RHR 2 is not what is expected
and this may be due to difficultly on some sections of the network to distinguish between
roadsides that were close to the change over point between RHR 1 and 2 or partly caused by
low severity sections being created incorrectly. For hospital crash outcomes there is not the
same distinction between the factors for RHR 2 and 3 (1.2 and 1.4 respectively) and this may be
due to difficulty for raters to either accurately locate object offset or object properties for some
hazards close to the change over point between RHR 2 and 3. Vegetation is an example of this,
as in some cases raters may have rated shrubs as being severe and in other cases rated them
as insignificant.

It can also be seen that for RHR 3 and 4 that for fatal crashes these two RHR levels make up
20.5% of the length rated yet equate (based on number of crashes) to 39.1 % of fatal hit object
crashes.

Further analysis is to be done showing MVKT analysis for RHR ratings of 1-4.

Table 4: Preliminary comparison of KSI hit object crashes and RHR

RHR Length No. fatal Rate Crash % % Hit Relative

(km) crashes crashes factor Length crashes object cost
/km RHR crash factor
cost per
km
1 27,776(1) 75 0.0027 1 75.0 58.6 $19,435 -
2 1,654 3 0.0018 0.67 4.5 2.3 $13,057 0.67
3 5,250 30 0.0057 2.12 14.2 23.4 $41,131 2.12
4 2,336 20 0.0086 3.17 6.3 15.7 $61,619 3.17
Total 37,016 128
(1)
1 27,776 382 0.0138 1 76.1 66.7 $4,733 -
2 1,654 28 0.0169 1.23 5.1 4.9 $5,827 1.23
3 5,250 102 0.0194 1.41 12.9 17.8 $6,687 1.41
4 2,336 61 0.0261 1.9 5.9 10.6 $8,986 1.9
Total 37,016 573
1 27,776(1) 457 0.0165 1 76.1 65.2 $24,169 -
2 1,654 31 0.0187 1.14 5.1 4.4 $18,884 0.78
3 5,250 132 0.0251 1.53 12.9 18.8 $47,818 1.98
4 2,336 81 0.0347 2.11 5.9 11.6 $70,606 2.92
Total 37,016 701
Note 1: 26,430 km of this rating was assessed as low severity and may include some built up
areas.

Note 2: Serious crashes = fatal and hospitalisation crashes combined.

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USE OF DATA
The RHR data will be able to be used for a number of purposes including:

 snapshot of the network in terms of roadside safety based on its configuration

 input into development of roadside improvement programs or maintenance programs
 input into the development of a road safety barrier upgrade or refurbishment program.

The data could be combined with other information such as crash statistics, horizontal geometry,
seal widths (including sealed shoulder widths), etc. to develop a roadside safety index. It can
also be used as an input into the Austroads National Risk Assessment Model (ANRAM)
(AUSTROADS 2011).

The data will enable Main Roads to assess and manage risks associated with the roadsides in a
consistent and appropriate manner. Some other uses of the data are described below.

Determination of extension of barriers off bridges

One of the asset management issues associated with bridges is how far off the bridge deck that
a road safety barrier should extend.

As part of bridge maintenance funding, some barriers have been extended off the bridge to
provide a ‘standard’ length of 22.5 m and a crashworthy gating terminal installed. In some cases
this extension has meant that the barrier has ended where the roadside is still hazardous.

The roadside hazard rating may be able to provide a way of identifying if the barrier extension is
adequate.

Figure F11 (SA 1999) of AS/NZS 3845 1999 Road Safety Barrier Systems contains the following
text related to the use of a gating end terminal: “the area behind the terminal shown hatched in
Diagram A should be reasonably traversable and free from fixed object hazards. If a clear runout
is not possible, this area should be similar in character to adjacent unshielded roadside areas.”

Using this type of philosophy the roadside hazard rating may be an objective way of initially
flagging those bridges that may need some consideration for barrier extension. For example, if
the roadside hazard rating at the location where the barrier terminates is greater than 3 and if it
reduces to 2 or less within 100 m, perhaps there is a need to investigate if there is a warrant to
extend the barrier.

Roadside hazards with secondary implications

On a number of Main Roads within the road reserve there is unprotected above ground utility
infrastructure within close proximity to the road. Refer to Figure 5 as an example.

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Figure 5: Water main alongside Northam Toodyay Road (M033)

In addition to the risk that the utility infrastructure poses to road users, there are also the risks
associated with the damage to the pipeline itself, e.g. spilling of contents of pipeline (as in the
case of fuel spillage) or disruption to service (water main).

Comparison of crash data hit object and the RHR data

Main Roads crash data contains data on up to three objects that have been hit during the crash.

The RHR data can be used to compare the information contained within the crash information
and can be used as an indication of the accuracy of the location information associated with the
crash record as well as the object hit information. A methodology was developed to compare the
crash hit object information with the RHR data within +/- 100 m of the accident location. For
example, if the crash occurred at location 15.00 then the tolerance is between 14.9 and 15.1
and this is merged with the RHR data so that all RHR data within the tolerance is shown. This
enables an assessment of the crash location to be undertaken, for example, if the hit object was
a safety barrier and there is no barrier within tolerance then the location information is incorrect.

The approach can also be used to match more specific barrier type information either within the
RHR data or with the barrier inventory to specific hit object types. The RHR data shows safety
barriers as either a barrier if it has crashworthy terminals or if not then as a barrier and non
crashworthy terminal. In the crash data the following objects could be used to match a hit barrier
crash; guardrail, concrete barrier culvert, bridge railing subway and these can then be matched
to inventory data.

As the RHR data also contains offset information, studies of severity versus offset can be
undertaken for a range of objects including barriers.

The RHR data can also be used for other asset management purposes including;

 Checking of inventory – as part of the RHR, roadside assets such as culverts were identified
and these can be used to check the culvert data contained within the corporate database in
terms of its locations as well as the approximate size of the culverts as the height of the
culvert (measured approximately from the obvert of the pipe to the top of the headwall) was
recorded.

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 Identification of objects within heavy vehicle envelopes – as the data contains offset
information it can be used to give an indication of the length of the road where there are
objects within a nominated vehicle envelope. In WA there are High Wide Load Corridors
which have been developed to cater for over-dimensional loads up to 8 m high, 8 m wide
and 24 m long with maximum 200 tonne net mass. The desirable minimum envelope
requirements for these vehicles are 10 m x 10 m.

CONCLUSION
Work undertaken to date on the RHR has indicated that it will be a useful input into the
development of a roadside improvement prioritisation program and that higher levels of the
rating 3 and 4 (i.e. those that flag high severity hazards located close to the edge of the road)
have higher fatal and hospitalisation crash rates (based on number of crashes) than those will a
lower rating 1 and 2 (less severe hazards close to the road or high severity hazards further
away from the road).

The data has other asset management uses and will be off assistance in a number of asset
management activities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Mr Bob Peters of the ARRB group for reviewing the first draft of this paper.

This project from its inception to completion ran over a four year period and the following people
and organisations made contributions towards it.

Name Role

Office of Road Safety Supported the concept of the roadside hazard rating and assisted in
gaining funding from the Road Trauma Trust Funding to collect side
scanning laser data and funded the initial roadside hazard rating
collection.

Main Roads Staff

Bernie Van Niekerk Trialled methodology on Collie – Lake King Rd and made suggestions
for improvements to the process.

Lawrence Chang Trialled methodology on Perth Bunbury Highway and Eyre Highway.

Tosh Sutcliff Undertook ratings and trialled refinements of RHR rating spreadsheets.

David Kennedy Developed macros for data manipulation.

Nik Stace Developed CSV loader to rubber-band and load the data and developed
reports within the Reporting Centre.

Shuk Jin Li Undertook crash data analysis of the RHR data.

Pasan Tennakoon Undertook ratings.

Ardeshir Bahmani Undertook ratings.

Will Elliffe Undertook ratings.

External resources

The following external resources undertook rating:

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25th ARRB Conference – Shaping the future: Linking policy, research and outcomes, Perth, Australia 2012

 Ciaran Allen
 Lorna Robertson
 JJ Venaille
 Leanne Moscrop
 Stephen Lynch
 Andrew Layton.

Vacation Students 2011/2012

Elliot Panos Undertook ratings and audited data.

Raj Shah Undertook ratings and audited data.

Vacation Students 2010/2011

Christopher Seeds Undertook ratings.

Konrad Robertson Undertook ratings.

Andrew Layton Undertook ratings.

Mustafa Heyadat Undertook ratings.

Blake Tocker Undertook ratings.

Vacation Students 2009/2010

Justin Gan Developed Hawkeye procedure rating manual and did some rating.

Ivan Tan Developed Hawkeye procedure rating manual and did some rating.

REFERENCES
AASHTO (1996), Roadside Design Guide, American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials, 2nd Edition

AASHTO (2009), Manual for Assessment of Roadside Hardware (MASH), American Association
of State Highway and Transportation Officials

ARRB (2012), Hawkeye Systems

http://www.arrb.com.au/admin/file/content2/c7/PB-Hawkeye%20Software.pdf

AUSRAP (2012), Australian Road Assessment Program http://www.ausrap.org/ausrap/

Austroads (2008), Glossary of Austroads terms, AP-C87/08, 3rd edn, AP-C87/08, Austroads,
Sydney, NSW

Austroads (2011), National Risk Assessment Model, Program Development and Trials: Interim
Report 2010/11, Austroads project ST1571, Austroads, Sydney, NSW

CASR (2010), Effective use of clear zones and barriers in a Safe System's context presented at
the Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing and Education Conference (2010 Canberra,
ACT) authors S, Doecke and J E Woolley

MRWA (2012a), Business case proposal for safer roads for regional communities program, Main
Roads WA, January 2012

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25th ARRB Conference – Shaping the future: Linking policy, research and outcomes, Perth, Australia 2012

MRWA (2012b), Main Roads Supplement to Austroads Guide to Road Design Part 6 – Roadside
Designs, Safety and Barriers, dated 31 January 2012 and available at the Main Roads website
www.mainroads.wa.gov.au

ORS (2008), Towards Zero Road Safety Strategy 2008-2020 available at

http://ors.wa.gov.au/Towards-Zero.aspx

Standard Australia (2002), AS 1348 Road and traffic engineering – Glossary of terms

Standard Australia (1999), AS / NZS 3845 Road Safety Barrier Systems

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Jan is currently the Strategic Asset Management Engineer with Main Roads Western Australia
and has over 20 years experience in road design and asset management. During his career he
has worked in private industry as a consulting engineer undertaking a wide array of design
works including road, drainage, flood protection works as well as rail works. Within Main Roads
he has undertaken design work as well as contributed to the development of standards and
guidelines and provided technical advice both within the organisation and externally. He
represents Main Roads on the committee for AS / NZS 3845 Road Safety Barrier Systems. Jan
has a Bachelor of Engineering Degree as well as a Master of Engineering.

Copyright Licence Agreement

The Author allows ARRB Group Ltd to publish the work/s submitted for the 25th ARRB Conference,
granting ARRB the non-exclusive right to:

• publish the work in printed format

• publish the work in electronic format
• publish the work online.

The Author retains the right to use their work, illustrations (line art, photographs, figures, plates) and
research data in their own future works

The Author warrants that they are entitled to deal with the Intellectual Property Rights in the works
submitted, including clearing all third party intellectual property rights and obtaining formal permission from
their respective institutions or employers before submission, where necessary.

© ARRB Group Ltd and Authors 2012 18