ASPECTS OF ROAD SAFETY AUDITS

By George Kanellaidis1

(Reviewed by the Highway Division)

ABSTRACT: The procedure of road safety audit (RSA), which originated in Great Britain and is now being
spread in several countries around the world, can be incorporated in the framework of designing, constructing,
and operating road infrastructure as a means for preventing accidents. RSA, which can be applied to both new
and existing road facilities, is typically carried out by an independent team consisting of highway engineers and/
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or traffic safety experts. The present paper focuses on the possibilities for further enhancing the consideration
of human factor-related issues in RSA guidelines. This can be achieved through the incorporation of quantitative
checks on consistency or driver work load. Such tests can give more weight to the auditors’ reasoning. Moreover,
the scope is investigated for providing increased opportunities for road user involvement in the RSA process.
Public involvement is examined from the aspect of a group’s representation, appropriate RSA stages, effective
procedures, and responsibility. The possible means and methods for communication between auditors and road
users’ representatives are also discussed.

INTRODUCTION policies. Guidelines for the design of highways include, to a

Road safety is an issue of prime importance in all motorized
countries. Although accident rates vary considerably among
countries, there is a consensus that their levels are far higher
than societies can tolerate. In the search for effective ways of
coping with this problem, there has recently been a drive to-
ward closer international cooperation, among both researchers
and policymakers. The research community has been increas-
ingly active regarding the international exchange of experience
in road safety, as manifested from events such as the ‘‘1997
Traffic Safety on Two Continents’’ conference. It is also worth
mentioning the initiatives undertaken in the 1990s by the Eur-
opean Commission (EC). One of the catalysts for EC activities
has been the Gerondeau report (Gerondeau 1991), whereby it
is proposed that European countries should aim to benefit from
one another’s experience in road safety issues, by seeking to
supplement the conventional EC’s approach of issuing direc-
tives with new forms of action, such as the following:
• Permanent exchange of road safety-related information
across countries (such as accident databases).
• The production and dissemination of technical manuals
with suggested improvements, as an interim step toward
the eventual harmonization of road safety policies (in-
cluding the creation of a European highway code).
• Attachment of importance to accident prevention, as a
means for monitoring quantified targets (the report set a
goal of reducing the killed and seriously injured figures
by 20–30% by the year 2000).
The prevention of traffic accidents involves much effort in
a wide range of fields, including regulatory measures (con-
cerning driving rules, licensing, vehicle standards, and other
issues), technical advances (such as improved vehicle design
or pavement construction techniques) and last but not least,
specific infrastructure/engineering improvements. It is widely
accepted (Gerondeau 1991; Ruyters et al. 1994) that sound
road design standards should be the backbone of road safety
1
Assoc. Prof., Hwy. Engrg., Nat. Tech. Univ. of Athens, 5 Iroon
Polytechniou, Athens, GR 157 73, Greece.
Note. Discussion open until May 1, 2000. To extend the closing date
one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Manager of
Journals. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and
possible publication on April 15, 1997. This paper is part of the Journal
of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 125, No. 6, November/December,
1999. 䉷ASCE, ISSN 0733-947X/99/0006-0481–0486/$8.00 ⫹ $.50 per
page. Paper No. 15563.
JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999 / 481
greater or lesser extent, safety-oriented considerations. How-
ever, road design must be a compromise between several fac-
tors besides safety, such as economy, traffic flow efficiency,
environmental considerations, etc. Consequently, established
practices and ad hoc decisions at all levels of road design may
not reflect maximum safety but, rather, a weighted optimum
between all relevant factors.
In addition, design standards in different countries (or in
different project types) may have different degrees of com-
pulsoriness, ranging from binding regulations to fully discre-
tionary possibilities (Ruyters et al. 1994); it is typically the
case for guidelines to suggest a minimum value for a design
element (e.g., curvature), dependent on a preselected design
speed. It is true that many guidelines incorporate certain con-
sistency checks, to ensure that the liberty of selecting (above-
minimum) design values does not result in an unpredictable,
and thus, unsafe driving environment. Nevertheless, adherence
to highway design standards does not mean that a highway
facility could not have been designed or built in a safer way.
Concepts such as quality management and sustainable safety
have gained ground in the past decade and may have been
among the factors that led policymakers and project managers
to realize the need for purely safety-oriented tools, to be used
as a means for achieving and maintaining the required safety
levels of roads intended for public use. One such procedure,
which originated in Great Britain and is now spreading in sev-
eral other countries, is the road safety audit (RSA). The con-
cept of RSA comes close to Gerondeau’s recommendation for
‘‘systematic external checks of the safety of every road net-
work’’ (Gerondeau 1991). RSA can be applied to either new
road schemes or existing roads. The latter case is envisaged
as a supplement to conventional road safety engineering prac-
tices (such as the ‘‘blackspot treatment’’ procedures) and adds
a preventive element to what is, essentially, a corrective (re-
medial) approach. Application of RSA to new road schemes,
which is the focus of this paper, can be seen as a means for
improving the process of designing and implementing high-
way projects, through the addition of explicit checks on their
safety at distinct stages of their development.
RSA is one of the best examples regarding the application
of techniques and research findings to real-world problems.
The present paper is a review of the RSA concept, its current
application, and possible enhancements. Besides providing a
concise overview of the experience with RSA in Great Britain
and elsewhere, the paper explores potential links between RSA
and important developments in the following:

J. Transp. Eng. 1999.125:481-486.

 • Highway engineering research: The significance of human
factors research findings and the scope for further incor-
porating these into RSA practice.
• Highway engineering practice: The establishment of en-
vironmental assessment and the examination of a similar
framework for RSA.
RSAs: THEIR ROLE IN DESIGN AND
IMPLEMENTATION OF HIGHWAY PROJECTS
A RSA can be defined as ‘‘a formal examination of an ex-
isting road or traffic project [. . .], in which an independent
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examiner reports on the project’s accident potential and safety
performance’’ (Austroads 1994). It involves ‘‘evaluation of
physical elements and their interaction having a direct bearing
on the safety of road users and others affected by a road con-
struction scheme, in order to detect foreseeable potential safety
hazards’’ (DOT 1990).
The RSA originated in Great Britain in the 1980s, where
the first formal guidelines were published (DOT 1990). Since
1991, RSA has been mandatory for British motorways and
‘‘trunk roads.’’ Other countries, such as Australia, New Zea-
land, and Denmark, have adopted the procedure and developed
their own guidelines, whereas in several other countries the
introduction of RSA has been considered or piloted. In the
United States, the Federal Highway Administration has re-
cently decided to promote the RSA process at state and local
levels; several states and some local governments have been
active in initiating pilot audits (Austroads 1998).
Regardless of the size or nature of a road project, a RSA
can be conducted at the following stages in the development
of a road project:
• Feasibility
• Preliminary/draft design
• Detailed design
• Preopening
Auditing at an early stage (such as feasibility) can help elim-
inate potential safety problems that can arise from initial de-
cisions (e.g., selection of road type and route), and whose cor-
rection at a later stage may be time-consuming, costly, or
simply impossible (Ruyters et al. 1994). The report by Ruyters
et al. has identified four distinct ‘‘levels’’ at which road safety
may be considered:
1. The road network in its entirety
2. Road classification
3. Adherence to standards
4. The detailed design process
From among these levels, it is Levels 3 and 4 that coincide
with decisions and actions pertaining to individual projects; it
is, therefore, at those levels that RSAs are most relevant. How-
ever, an RSA at the feasibility stage, where the role of a new
road in the network hierarchy is defined, can be considered as
a potential safety improvement at the level of road classifica-
tion. At Level 1, one needs to consider the overall benefits for
the road system from introducing RSA, either as an option or
as a requirement, for individual projects.
RSA should be carried out by an independent team, whose
members must possess sufficient knowledge in the fields of
road design, traffic engineering, and driver behavior. The au-
ditor has to submit a written report to the client (i.e., the high-
way authority that owns the project) or, in certain cases, to the
designer or project manager. Depending on the organizational
structure, the auditor’s recommendations may either be bind-
ing (i.e., compulsory to follow before proceeding to the next
482 / JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999
J. Transp. Eng. 1999.125:481-486.
stage) or be subject to assessment by the recipient of the report
(client, designer, or project manager).
A RSA, at any project stage, should involve the following
steps for the auditor (Austroads 1994):
• An initial meeting between the auditor and the recipient
of the audit report
• Assessment of the design documents and other back-
ground information
• Inspection of the site
• Writing of the report
• A final meeting for discussing the recommendations
A valuable tool for auditors, useful at all stages of an RSA,
is the set of checklists included as an attachment to RSA man-
uals (DOT 1990; Austroads 1994). It is generally thought ap-
propriate to use the checklists primarily as a memory aid—to
make sure that nothing has been overlooked—instead of
solely relying on those for carrying out the audit; ‘‘they are
not a substitute for knowledge and experience’’ (Austroads
1994).
In assessing documents, such as drawings and other data, the
main task for the auditor is to consider the compliance with
road/traffic engineering guidelines. However, auditing goes
beyond checking adherence to design standards (Proctor and
Belcher 1993). In certain situations, it may be necessary to re-
vise a design that is compatible with standards to achieve im-
proved safety. Moreover, decisions that do not directly or in-
directly affect safety should not belong to the scope of an audit.
A practical example of auditing the design of a signalized
intersection is presented in Fig. 1 (Austroads 1994). To avoid
locating a pedestrian crossing 10 m downstream from a traffic
signal, the proposed layout in this example was changed to
reduce the number of conflict points.
The potential intersection between highway design stan-
dards and RSAs should not be overlooked. Because the revi-
sion of design standards is a long and complex process
(Kanellaidis 1996), it might be possible to utilize RSAs as a
means for improving those standards. As audits take a broad
view concerning safe road design, it is generally the case that
their recommendations also include the application of concepts
and specific practices, which, although being accepted and of
proven effectiveness, have not yet found their way into design
guidelines. The lessons learned from the experience of road
authorities with RSAs, regarding both the proposed design so-
lutions themselves and their effectiveness (in terms of the new
road’s safety performance, as monitored and quantitatively re-
corded), should be documented in a systematic way to serve
as an input for the next revision of design standards.
RSAs AND HUMAN FACTORS
Human factor engineering involves the application of find-
ings from behavioral studies to engineering solutions. In the
context of highway design, the term ‘‘human factors’’ denotes
the attachment of emphasis on road user characteristics.
Among the main categories of factors contributing to traffic
accidents, those related to road users account (alone or in com-
bination with road- and vehicle-related factors) for more than
90% of crashes (Sabey and Taylor 1980; Evans 1991). It is to
be expected that measures and standards directly pertaining to
the road users (such as education, information, and enforce-
ment) should be crucial to a road safety policy. However,
given the interaction among all three components of the ‘‘hu-
man-vehicle-road environment’’ system, measures concerning
highway or vehicle design also affect driver behavior. Thus,
the importance of human factors to road safety is beyond
doubt.
Researchers have suggested (Lamm et al. 1986; Krammes
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FIG. 1. Practical Example of RSA (Austroads 1994)
1994) that highway design guidelines should more explicitly
consider road user characteristics. This could help reduce the
probability of driver error or, in cases where it cannot be suf-
ficiently reduced, provide a ‘‘forgiving’’ road environment
(‘‘Policy’’ 1994). Certainly, the development of highway de-
sign guidelines has been marked by an increased emphasis on
road user requirements and a stronger behavioral content than
before. It can be argued, however, that there is still a human
factor deficit to be overcome.
Specifically, two main areas can be identified (Kanellaidis
1996) in the context of human factors in road and traffic en-
gineering:
• Area I: Effect of highway design on driver behavior
• Area II: Consideration of driver behavior variability
To illustrate the scope of the above two areas, some of the
main concepts associated with each one are listed below.
Area I Concepts
• Design consistency, driver expectancy, and driver work-
load: Quantitative indices, investigation of their associa-
tion with safety of design (Messer et al. 1981; Leisch and
Leisch 1977; Hirsh 1987; Polus and Dagan 1987).
• Models linking geometric design parameters and variables
pertaining to driver behavior: For example, speed-curva-
ture graphs (McLean 1981; Kanellaidis et al. 1990; Lamm
et al. 1992).
• Drivers’ perception of the risk associated with geometric
design features: Objective versus subjective risk, risk
compensation, and other theories (Watts and Quimby
1980; Wright and Boyle 1987; Kanellaidis and Dimitro-
poulos 1994).
Area II Concepts
• Need for improved consideration of all types of road
users, including among others: aging drivers, drivers us-
ing speeds above the 85th percentile speed, pedestrians,
and other vulnerable road users (McLean 1981; Zegeer
and Council 1993).
• Examination of driver behavior under nonstandard envi-
ronmental conditions, such as darkness and adverse
weather.
JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999 / 483
J. Transp. Eng. 1999.125:481-486.
For several of the above concepts, some highway design
guidelines have already incorporated explicit checks and pro-
visions. For example, since the mid-1980s, German standards
(RAS-L-1 1995) have included a graph for estimating the con-
sistency of consecutive horizontal curves, as well as a model
for predicting the 85th percentile speed as a function of the
road’s bendiness, or curvature change rate. Also, standards in
the United States (AASHTO 1994) and other countries make
either quantitative provisions or comments regarding the safety
of certain road user types (e.g., pedestrians) or special condi-
tions. However, other human factor-related concepts are not
extensively (or not at all) covered in road design guidelines.
It is interesting to note that RSA guidelines (Austroads
1994; ‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996) seem to also have made consider-
able advances toward the incorporation of at least some of
those concepts. Some examples are mentioned below.
Some Area I concepts and suggestions included in audit
guidelines are as follows:
• Principle for safer road designs: ‘‘Designing for the user’’
(Austroads 1994).
• Preopening stage: It is essential to drive, cycle, walk, and/
or ride through the scheme, where appropriate, to see it
as the road user sees it (‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996).
• Preliminary design stage: The impact of landscaping on
visibility and road user perception should be checked
(‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996).
• Concerning junctions: It is important to avoid perceptual
problems, junction choice should be consistent along
routes to aid driver recognition (‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996), per-
ception of priority should be reinforced by visual cues
(Austroads 1994).
• Concerning merges: Adequate sight distance is required
in advance to allow drivers to appreciate and plan the
merge (Austroads 1994).
• Need to avoid a visually deceptive combination of sharp
curves and restricted sight distances (‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996)
Some Area II concepts and suggestions included in audit
guidelines are as follows:
• Auditing principles include meeting the needs and per-
ceptions of all types of road users, and achieving a bal-
ance between needs where they may be in conflict. The
‘‘drive, ride, walk in safety’’ concept is associated with
highlighting the needs of the more vulnerable road user;
in a safety audit, the road scene should be visualized
 through the eyes of all the different types of road users
(‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996).
• Need to consider the special needs of heavy vehicles, bi-
cycles, pedestrians, particularly children, the elderly, and
the intoxicated (Austroads 1994).
• Preopening stage: The emphasis is to inspect the scheme
from the viewpoint of the different road users: Pedestri-
ans, cyclists, equestrians, public transport operators,
goods vehicles, as well as car drivers (‘‘Guidelines’’
1996).
• Follow-up stage: The emphasis should be on the ‘‘drive,
ride, walk’’ concept, to check that the perception of safety
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to different road users is up to expectations (‘‘Guidelines’’
1996).
• Need to inspect the audited sight also by nighttime
(Austroads 1994) and to assess the effect of wet weather
on day and night visibility (‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996).
The above provisions in guidelines are expressed in terms
of suggested principles and best practice tips. However, they
are rarely, if ever, expressed quantitatively. It could be argued
that the auditor’s experience and judgment, together with his/
her familiarity with both design standards and state-of-the-art
research findings, should be sufficient to ensure that human
factor-related issues are treated in the best possible way. How-
ever, it may be practical to introduce explicit quantitative
checks as part of auditing guidelines, possibly as a supplement
or enhancement to checklists. Where available, such provi-
sions (e.g., for consistency/driver workload) could help im-
prove and clarify the behavioral perspective of a road safety
audit: The auditor’s judgment could thus be backed by quan-
tified estimates that are easy to obtain, without the need to
consult standards or to seek within the vast body of research.
This could lead to RSA guidelines developing into self-suffi-
cient yet flexible manuals, such as the Highway Capacity Man-
ual (1985).
PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN RSAs
Given the significant current behavioral content of RSAs,
as well as the potential for its enhancement, the requirement
for engineers to ‘‘learn to see the highway in the eyes of the
ordinary driver’’ (Messer et al. 1981; ‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996) is
highly relevant in the case of road safety auditors. A question
arising from that consideration is whether, and to what extent,
input from the actual road users can be utilized in the RSA
process. Can RSAs provide the opportunity for drivers, riders,
and walkers—for whom engineers are supposed to act, in a
way, as surrogates—to actually have a say in decisions that
are to affect their own safety?
British guidelines for RSA (‘‘Guidelines’’ 1996) mention
‘‘feedback from road users’’ as a possible input during the
monitoring (follow-up) phase of an audited road, to establish
whether the perception of safety in a completed scheme is up
to the users’ expectations. An even more substantial step in
the direction of public involvement in road safety would be to
seek the opinion of road users during the auditing process
itself. Public involvement should not be taken to mean that
experts’ assessments are inadequate or unreliable. Its main
purpose is to provide the road users’ angle, and thus, to help
engineers acquire a better understanding of their perception,
expectations, and needs.
Road safety presents certain similarities to environmental
effects, in that both are quality aspects of road traffic that, in
the context of specific projects, are often overlooked due to
level-of-service and accessibility requirements. On the basis of
that similarity, it has been suggested (Wegman et al. 1994)
that procedures used to assess environmental impacts could be
transferred to the evaluation of road safety impacts. Adoption
484 / JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999
J. Transp. Eng. 1999.125:481-486.
within RSA frameworks of environmental assessment proce-
dures, which include public participation as an integral part,
could lead to the eventual incorporation of RSAs into the
framework of what is known as the ‘‘environmental impact
assessment’’ in Europe, or the environmental impact statement
in the United States—concepts developed in the last 30 years.
The following aspects may be considered for initiating such
enhancement in RSA procedures.
Definition and Representation of Affected Groups
As a first step in the introduction of public involvement, it
will be important to define the categories of affected groups.
In a rural road project, these will include the drivers of private
cars, motorcycles, and special categories of vehicles (such as
lorries and buses), where relevant. In an urban road project
(or a road including sections passing through inhabited areas),
other road user categories may also be of interest, such as
pedestrians, cyclists, taxi drivers, etc. The representatives of
affected groups for the purposes of auditing can be selected
from associations of professional and amateur drivers (for ex-
ample, automobile/motorcycling/cycling clubs, lorry driver un-
ions, etc.). The viewpoint of pedestrians (and of the general
public) could be expressed by representatives from local gov-
ernment and/or special unions or other citizen initiatives. If
special categories of drivers are to be considered, relevant as-
sociations could also have their representative. For example,
the aging of the western world’s population and the resulting
increase in the percentage of older road users would suggest
that these should be particularly considered and represented in
the public panel through a member of a pensioners’ union or
other similar body. It is important that the representatives ap-
pointed are not posing as road safety experts, nor should they
be chosen on such grounds.
Relevant RSA Stages
A suitable time at which the public can be involved in a
RSA seems to be at the preopening stage, when it is possible
to drive (and also walk or cycle) through the facility. It seems
reasonable that public involvement should, as a first step, be
included only at that stage; at earlier stages, it would arguably
be too difficult for nonspecialists in highway design to under-
stand the engineering plans of the highway and to imagine the
problems that would occur to them as drivers/pedestrians.
However, there arises the possibility that the preopening stage
may be too late for significant corrections to be made to the
design. Perspective drawings of the highway scheme (Taigan-
idis and Kanellaidis 1998) could then be of help, particularly
if it is possible to produce animation on a computer screen to
simulate movement through the facility, and thus facilitate
evaluation by nonexperts at the detailed design stage. Never-
theless, the introduction of visual aids depends on how far it
is technically feasible (and economically reasonable) to pro-
duce realistic and meaningful representations of road users’
visions.
Communication
An important issue to the success of public involvement is
the need for a systematic, effective procedure of communicat-
ing (common language) between experts and the public. In this
context, the presence of a mediator (Hartgen and Driggers
1993) will be essential. This mediator may be a member or
associate of the engineering auditing team, independent of the
design team. The mediator should also be in a position to
adequately fulfill his/her role; i.e., he/she should be approved
by the panel of road users and be capable of reaching a good
standard of communication with them. The role of the medi-
 ator will become more important if, in the future, the possi-
bility of extending public involvement to audits on the detailed
design stage is explored. In this case, he/she will have to es-
tablish a two-way communication with the public, by trans-
lating the plans of the road to them as well as receiving their
reactions and comments.
Contribution
The public panel can provide inputs in one or more of the
following forms (Wright and Boyle 1987; Brackett 1993;
Zeitlin 1993; Kanellaidis and Dimitropoulos):
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• Ratings of road hazards (in one or more subjective scales):
These could come in the form of rank-ordering, or mark-
ing on a bipolar semantic differential scale. This proce-
dure has the advantage of being quantitative and offering
the possibility of correlating (average) ratings to physical
features of the road. Its main disadvantage is the difficulty
of allowing meaningful comparisons between different
panels of raters.
• Verbal (oral or written) description of potentially hazard-
ous sites: This method would have the advantage of being
potentially very descriptive but would present the diffi-
culty of quantification and standardization.
• Presenting the road user with a checklist/questionnaire for
assessing safety: In this process, failure to give the panel’s
members the freedom of identifying what they consider
dangerous (this could be achieved by including open-
ended items) would very likely result in lack of infor-
mation.
Responsibility
Finally, it will be necessary to clarify the limits of the pub-
lic’s responsibility. As audits are not concerned with the stra-
tegic design of the scheme, public involvement cannot (and
should not) be another bureaucratic hurdle. Rather, it is im-
portant that arrangements are such that the auditing process is
smooth, effective, and comprehensive. The mediator should be
responsible for collecting and clarifying the comments of the
panel’s members. However, it is the auditing team (i.e., the
safety engineers) that should be responsible for the production
of the audit report (which should clearly indicate what com-
ments/issues were raised by the public panel and how they
were dealt with).
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The 1991 Gerondeau report suggested that European coun-
tries should pursue new forms of action to benefit from one
another’s experience in road safety issues. Particular impor-
tance has been attached to accident prevention. The procedure
of RSA can be incorporated in the process of the design, con-
struction, and operation of highways as a means of preventing
accidents. RSA, which originated in Great Britain and is now
being spread in several countries around the world, may be
applied to either new roads (on completion of the individual
design stages, as well as before the project is opened to traffic)
or existing ones, as a supplement to conventional safety-en-
gineering practices.
The RSA team typically consists of highway engineers and/
or traffic safety experts and it is independent of both the de-
signer and the client. After assessing design documents and
other information, as well as inspecting the site, auditors pre-
pare a written report of recommendations for improving the
safety of the scheme. The auditor’s main task is to check the
project on the basis of design guidelines and auditing check-
lists; however, their knowledge and experience plays an im-
portant role.
JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING / NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1999 / 485
J. Transp. Eng. 1999.125:481-486.
Given the significance of human factors for road safety, it
is argued that design guidelines should ensure a more explicit
consideration of road user characteristics, particularly those
concerning: (1) the effect of highway design on driver behav-
ior; and (2) driver behavior variability among different road
user types. Safety audit guidelines seem to have made consid-
erable advances toward incorporating relevant requirements in
their principles and checklists. It may be practical, however,
to introduce quantitative checks (e.g., for consistency or driver
workload) as a supplement or enhancement of checklists, to
back the auditor’s judgment by easily obtainable quantified
information. Eventually, RSA guidelines could develop to self-
sufficient yet flexible highway safety manuals, useful not just
for the auditor but, primarily, for the highway designer, within
the broader objective of developing a safety culture among the
engineering community.
Another possible development for the RSA process lies in
providing increased opportunities for road user involvement.
It has been suggested that procedures used for environmental
impact assessment/statements, of which public participation is
an integral part, could be transferred to the evaluation of road
safety impacts. Important steps in developing such a frame-
work include: (1) defining the affected groups and specifying
the means of representing them; (2) identifying auditing stages
in which public input would be most appropriate; (3) working
out systematic and effective procedures for communicating,
possibly through a third-party mediator; (4) selecting the most
useful forms (e.g., questionnaire) for provision of the public
panel’s contribution; and (5) clarifying the limits of the pub-
lic’s responsibility. Public involvement should not be taken to
mean that experts’ opinion is inadequate. It should rather be
seen in the overall perspective of ensuring a better two-way
communication between engineers and road users: The former
acquiring a direct understanding of road users’ perception and
needs, and the latter experiencing a sense of involvement in
the implementation of a road project, enhancing both the
safety of the scheme and their own overall acceptance of it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The writer wishes to thank Ioannis Dimitropoulos and Anastasia
Flouda, Research Associates of the National Technical University of Ath-
ens, for their suggestions regarding the completion of this paper.
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