CAREC Road Safety Engineering Manual 1

Road Safety Audit

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• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9789292610951
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Ingeniería civil

Research indicates that up to 28% of crashes are due to the road environment. The most important objective of road safety audit is to minimize crashes, and to minimize the severity of any crashes that may occur on a new road project. The series of CAREC road safety engineering manuals came from the endorsement of the CAREC Road Safety Strategy 2017–2030 by member countries. The strategy supports and encourages CAREC authorities to plan, design, construct, and maintain safe roads. This manual also explains the road safety audit process as it can apply in CAREC road projects. It provides information about the audit process for those who undertake the audits (practitioners) and for those who manage the audit process (policy makers).

III. Carrying out a Road Safety Audit

53. Road safety audits are undertaken to identify safety concerns in a road design, so those who are responsible for designing and building the road project can take appropriate measures at the earliest possible time to eliminate the identified safety concerns and so enhance safety on the road.

54. The road safety audit (RSA) process is made up of nine key steps illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1: Key Steps in the Road Safety Audit Process

Road Safety Audit Step	Responsibility
1. Determine if an audit is needed.	Project manager
2. Select an audit team leader, who then engages the audit team.	Project manager and road safety audit team leader
3. Draft the pre-audit communication to provide information (drawings and design reports) about the project to the team leader, outlining the project and discuss the audit ahead.	Designer (via project manager) and road safety audit team leader
4. Assess the drawings for safety issues (the “desktop” audit).	Audit team
5. Inspect the site both during daytime and nighttime.	Audit team
6. Write the audit report and send to the project manager.	Team leader with assistance from audit team
7. Discuss the key safety issues and clarify outstanding matters during post-audit communication.	Project manager (plus designer) and road safety audit team leader
8. Write a response report, referring to each audit recommendation.	Project manager
9. Follow up and implement agreed changes.	Project manager (and designer)

Source: AUSTROADS. 2009. Guide to Road Safety Part 6: Road Safety Audit. Sydney, Australia.

An experienced road safety audit team will always consider the safety needs of vulnerable road users.

A. Step 1: Deciding an audit is necessary

55. The road agency will decide, as part of its internal regulations, policies or staff instructions which road projects are to be audited. The decision may be based on the agency’s road safety audit policy. A draft audit policy is included in chapter IV for reference.

56. If the road agency has yet to develop a road safety audit policy, consider the need for an audit based on the size of the project and the road hierarchy. For example, most road agencies require works on expressways, national highways, and primary arterials to always be audited, and at three or four stages. Projects on lesser roads may be audited at fewer stages.

57. As a general rule, the most appropriate number of audit stages for a particular road project usually depends on the size of the project and the class of the road. A large new road project on a major highway should be audited at each of the five recognized audit stages (chapter II-B). However, in comparison, projects on less busy and lower-speed roads may be audited at fewer stages (anywhere from a single stage of audit upward).

B. Step 2: Selecting the audit team

58. The project manager appoints the audit team leader (a senior road safety auditor), and specifies the number of members in the team. The senior road safety auditor should be an experienced professional on the national register of accredited auditors, where such a register exists (see chapter IV-E for a full description). The first task of the team leader is to engage a small audit team. Members should be qualified road safety auditors in the same national register.

59. When engaging the audit team members, the team leader should ask questions such as

• Is this auditor independent of the project?

• Has this auditor attended an approved audit workshop?

• Has this auditor the necessary skills for this size and stage of project?

• Is this auditor able to see potential safety concerns from different road users’ points of view?

60. Successful road safety auditors will likely have experience in road safety engineering, and some may also have a background in the following:

• traffic engineering,

• road design and construction techniques, or

• road user behavior.

61. It is important to select auditors with relevant experience. Is the project an expressway or a local street? Is it an urban or a rural project? What stage of audit is involved? The most critical elements in any road safety audit are the judgment, technical knowledge, and skills of the audit team. There is no substitute for an experienced road safety audit team that understands the audit process, and is able to foresee potential safety concerns.

62. It is not surprising that most auditors are professional engineers. Invariably, one or more engineers will be needed in the team for design stage audits because of the need to examine drawings and the need to be able to think in three dimensions. But it is not usually a requirement of an accreditation scheme for auditors to be qualified engineers. Some auditors may have qualifications or experiences in fields as diverse as education, traffic enforcement, construction, maintenance, or traffic management. Their experience in road safety and their judgment in safety issues are more critical than their formal qualifications.

63. How many people should be in an audit team? This depends on the size of the audit task. Large road projects require at least two people; teams of more than four people may become unmanageable and inefficient. So, as a general rule, a team of two or three is about the right size for most audits. For minor projects on low-volume roads in low speed locations, an audit by one person may be satisfactory if approval is first given by the project manager, or if this is detailed in the terms of reference (TOR) for the audit.

64. The senior auditor should assemble an audit team that comprises members with varying specialist areas and varying lengths of experience. The road safety audit process itself is quite straightforward, but the skills necessary to undertake a worthwhile audit are quite substantial. The audit team needs to be able to interpret technical drawings, looking for any possible negative (unsafe) features included and, at the same time, any positive (safe) features left out.

65. Younger auditors may have different, but valid, views of a road design issue compared with older team members. Auditors with strong road design experience will usually look at different aspects of a design than those with a traffic engineering background.

66. There are some key things to remember when engaging an audit team:

• Start by appointing an accredited senior road safety auditor to be the team leader of the audit team. The team leader shall then appoint the remainder of the team.

• Team members may come from different organizations, and from differing professions. Each should be independent of the proposal, and each should be registered in the national auditor register (where one exists). An example of an accreditation scheme is set out in chapter IV-E of this manual for consideration in each country.

• It is better to use a road safety audit team, rather than a single auditor. A road safety audit is best performed by a team of two or three people who are sufficiently experienced in the areas of road safety engineering, crash investigation and prevention, traffic engineering, and road design.

• There are many benefits of engaging an audit team to undertake the audit rather than using a single auditor. The main benefits include:

» Different perspectives of the same issue can be gained. This comes from the diversity of backgrounds and from different experiences within the team.

» Cross-fertilization of ideas. When two or three professionals discuss safety issues in the office during the “desktop” audit or when on site, they help each other to develop clarity in their ideas and a wider view of the potential safety concerns in the project.

» Advantages of having more knowledge readily available on-site. If the audit team has members with quite different backgrounds, they can assist each other on technical issues. Two heads are better than one.

» Gender and age differences may also cause auditors to see safety issues differently. While it is not always possible to have a mix of ages and both sexes, it is desirable to engage audit teams that are of as wide a mix as possible.

» Some smaller projects on lightly trafficked and lower-speed roads may be audited by a single experienced auditor. However, road agencies are advised not to take shortcuts with safety, and to limit one-person audits to those road environments where risk will likely be low.

• The most significant aspect of good auditors is their ability to put themselves in the shoes of future road users. By empathizing the safety needs of all road users—motorized and nonmotorized, large and small—the auditor will be best positioned to interpret the drawings and to draw out the key safety concerns for the future.

67. The audit team also needs to be able to communicate clearly the safety concerns it finds in a report to the project manager. If the project manager cannot understand the safety concerns detected in the audit, there is a risk that decisions may be taken that could lead to either a waste of public funds or to unsafe outcomes for road users. Different views and expectations lead to a more complete and useful audit report.

68. To improve the likelihood of engaging a good audit team, road authorities should make clear (either in their internal instructions or in their TOR for the audit) that a road safety audit is to be performed by a team (minimum of two people) who are experienced and experts in the process.

69. Audits can provide an opportunity for less-experienced staff to be observers on a team and to learn about the process and the skills involved. This may be helpful in the early days of implementing the audit process, and while road agencies are endeavoring to build up their understanding and experience of the audit process.

C. Step 3: Pre-audit communication

70. The project manager (or the design team) provides a copy of all the required drawings and project reports to the audit team leader to enable a thoro...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Boxes and Tables
• Abbreviations
• Purpose of this Manual
• I. What is Road Safety Audit and Why is It Needed?
• II. Elements of the Road Safety Audit Process
• III. Carrying out a Road Safety Audit
• IV. Managing a Road Safety Audit
• V. Case Studies
• VI. Checklists
• Footnotes
• Back Cover