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KNOWLEDGE BASED INSTRUMENTS FOR MANAGING ROAD SAFETY ON EU-
ROADS: RANKING OF HIGH ACCIDENT CONCENTRATION SECTIONS, ROAD
SAFETY INSPECTION AND ROAD SAFETY AUDIT
Alfredas Laurinavičius1, Kornelija Ratkevičiūtė2, Lina Juknevičiūtė-Žilinskienė3, Ineta Lingytė4,
Laura Čygaitė5, Vytautas Grigonis6, Rasa Ušpalytė-Vitkūnienė7, Dago Antov8, Tiit Metsvahi9,
Zsuzsanna Toth-Szabo10, András Várhelyi11
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Department of Roads, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Saulėtekio al. 11, 10223 Vilnius, Lithuania,
E-mails: 1alfredas.laurinavicius@vgtu.lt, 2kornelija.ratkeviciute@vgtu.lt, 3linaj@vgtu.lt, 4ineta.lingyte@vgtu.lt, 5
laura.cygaite@vgtu.lt, 6vytautas.grogonis@vgtu.lt, 7rasa.uspalyte@vgtu.lt
8,9 Department of Transportation, Tallinn University of Technology, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086, Tallinn, Estonia,
E-mails: 8dago.antov@ttu.ee, 9 tiit.metsvahi@ttu.ee
10,11 Department of Technology and Society, Lund University, Paradisgatan 2, SE-22100, Lund, Sweden,
E-mails: 10zsuzsanna.toth-szabo@tft.lth.se, 11andras.varhelyi@tft.lth.se
Abstract. Directive 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety management requires the establishment and
implementation of procedures relating to road safety impact assessments (RSIA), road safety audits (RSA), ranking
of high accident concentration sections and network safety ranking (NSR) and road safety inspections (RSI). This
Directive shall apply to roads which are part of the trans-European road network, whether they are at the design stage,
under construction or in operation. Member States may also apply the provisions of this Directive, as a set of good
practices, to national road transport infrastructure, not included in the trans-European road network.
Network safety ranking means a method for identifying, analysing and classifying parts of the existing road network
according to their potential for safety development and accident cost savings. Ranking of high accident concentration
sections means a method to identify, analyse and rank sections of the road network which have been in operation for
3–5 years and upon which a large number of fatal/injury accidents in proportion to the traffic flow or compared to
respective conditions have occurred. Road safety inspection is a strategic comparative analysis of the impact of the
new road or a substantial modification to the existing network on the safety performance of the road network. Road
safety audit is a formal safety performance examination of the existing or future road or intersection by an
independent audit team.
Keywords: Network safety ranking, high accident concentration sections, hazardous road section, homogenous road
sections, accident rate, accident data, road safety audit, road safety inspection, auditor.
1. Introduction
One of the main tasks in developing transport
systems is to decrease human losses caused by traffic
accidents. The social consequences of accidents and the
relating human losses were the main reasons why the
ministers of transport of the ECMT countries decided in
2002 to take measures in order to decrease the number of
traffic accident related deaths in Member States 50% by
the year 2012. The European Commission has set a
similar task for the EU Member States, recommending to
decrease the number of accident related deaths 50% by
the year 2010 (EC 2011).
Directive 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety
management requires the establishment and
implementation of procedures relating to road safety
impact assessments (RSIA), road safety audits (RSA),
ranking of high accident concentration sections and
network safety ranking (NSR) and road safety inspections
(RSI). This Directive shall apply to roads which are part
of the trans-European road network, whether they are at
the design stage, under construction or in operation.
Member States may also apply the provisions of this
Directive, as a set of good practices, to national road
transport infrastructure, not included in the trans-
European road network.
The growth in car ownership together with a more
active car usage and bigger mobility has brought along
many negative consequences also in the Baltic region, the
most serious among them being the people killed and
injured in traffic accidents.
We can carry out a reliable road traffic safety
comparison only with respect to countries that have a
similar level of car ownership, which means that we can
compare countries in which the number of motor vehicles
per 1,000 inhabitants is similar. An important input for
assessing road traffic safety is traffic volume; however,
this data are missing for many countries or they are
unreliable (WHO 2004). The best and most available
criterion for assessing road traffic safety is the number of
traffic accident related deaths per one million inhabitants.
At the same time, this indicator may not necessarily show
if the respective country’s road traffic safety policy is
better or worse. Differences may also be caused by very
different traffic conditions caused by various
geographical and socio-economic factors:
•climate and geographical conditions,
•division of vehicles by type,
•traffic management,
•importance of international traffic,
•density and quality of road network,
•land usage and planning,
•population density,
•traffic behaviour,
•standard of living, etc.
Rather than working to improve safety of existing
facilities the proactive engineering approach to road
safety improvement focuses on predicting and improving
safety of planned of facilities (De Leur, Sayed 2003). The
same is relevant to existing roads where the lower cost
road safety improvement activities through proactive
intervention may be more active than reactive approach.
Here the three developing procedures – evaluation of
high accident concentration sections, road safety auditing
(for planned road schemes) and road safety inspection
(for existing road schemes) have big chances to
contribute the infrastructure safety improvement.
Research results of the last decade might work as
basis for improved road design standards and guidelines
to improve safety of roads. The RSA and RSI can work
as a source of information on potential safety
improvements, to be used to develop technical standards
and specifications.
BALTRIS (2011) is a project within the European
Union’s Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007 – 2013, a
programme that promotes regional development through
transnational cooperation. The aim is to make the Baltic
Sea region an attractive place to invest, work and live in.
The BALTRIS project is expected to lead to improved
safety of road infrastructure as well as possibilities to
choose cost-effective engineering solutions. Safer road
infrastructure will result in improved overall road safety
(Laurinavičius at al. 2012).
The specific objective of BALTRIS is to develop
tools and build capacity to better manage safety of road
infrastructure in the Baltic Sea Region. This by exchange
of experience and joint development of road
infrastructure safety management procedures, i.e.:
• road safety impact assessment,
• road safety inspections and road safety audits,
• evaluation of high accident concentration sections.
BALTRIS is led by Lithuanian Road
Administration. Project partners are Estonian Road
Administration, The Swedish Transport Administration,
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Tallinn
University of Technology, Lund University and Riga
Technical University.
2. The process of Road Network Safety Ranking
Network safety ranking and ranking of high accident
concentration sections is performed on the basis of injury
accident records (accidents with material damage only are
excluded) and inspections of the road sections with a
large number of fatal and severe accidents. Its
organisational costs can be therefore assumed comparable
to costs of routine road safety inspections. Road safety
inspections shall be carried out pursuant to “Procedures
for Road Safety Inspection” (Antov, Metsvahi 2011). As
results of the inspections, remedial measures for
realisation shall be ranked based on their benefit/cost
ratios for prioritisation for implementation. Therefore,
only safety measures showing the highest benefit-cost
ratios shall then be implemented. This guarantees that
costs increases due to the measures selected for
implementation will be offset within a short while due to
reduced number and cost of accidents.
Determination of safety levels of road network is
organized by the institution implementing the road
network owner’s rights and duties of the state road
maintenance enterprises. Road network safety and high
accident concentration sections ranking procedures can
be divided into 5 stages: Data collection, Definition,
Dividing, Indication and Analysis.
2.1. Data collection
Data collection is a very important part of the
implementation of the guidelines. The necessary data is
as follows:
•Injury accidents (location of the accident, date
and hour of accident, accident type, accident
severity, including number of fatalities and injured
persons, characteristics of the persons involved such
as age, sex, nationality, alcohol level, use of safety
equipment or not, data on the vehicles involved
(type, age, country, safety equipment if any, date of
last periodical technical check according to
applicable legislation), accident data such as
collision type, vehicle and driver manoeuvre, road
surface and weather conditions, whenever possible,
information on the time elapsed between the time of
the accident and the recording of the accident, or the
arrival of the emergency services, pictures and/or
diagrams of the accident site).
•Traffic volume (Annual average daily traffic
(AADT), proportion of light and heavy vehicle).
•Road parameters (road status or function, road
significance (type), road category, cross section
including number of lanes, lane width, shoulder and
the presence of bicycle lanes and side strips,
possibility for oncoming traffic, speed limit,
lighting, markings, alignment, roadside obstacles,
number and design of intersections and access
roads, junction type including signalling).
•The surrounding environment (rural or urban
area).
Those data have to be relatively easily located and
be immediately interoperable with each other.
2.2. Definition of road groups and junction groups
The road network should be divided into
homogeneous sections with regard to selected traffic and
road design parameters. The groups of road sections and
the groups of junctions are formed separately (EC 2011).
The groups of road sections are formed according to the
following parameters:
•road type and category;
•surrounding environment (rural or
urban area);
•cross section;
•speed limit;
•traffic volume.
Figure 1 give a scheme for dividing roads into
groups and subgroups based on 4 criteria:
•By the first criterion “road type, category,
surrounding environment (rural or urban
area)” four large road groups are distinguished,
i.e. motorways, main roads, national and
regional roads, urban roads.
•By the second criterion “cross-section” the
subgroups are distinguished: roads with median
and roads of different width of carriageway
without median.
•By the third criteria “speed limit” the subgroups
are divided into smaller subgroups: roads with a
speed limit of 50km/h, 70 km/h, 80 km/h, 90,
km/h, 100 km/h, 110 km/h, 130 km/h.
•By the fourth criteria “traffic volume” the
subgroups are divided into more smaller
subgroups: roads with different traffic volume.
Fig. 1. The process of dividing the road network into road groups and subgroups
Junction groups and subgroups are formed taking
into account two criteria (see figure 2):
•junction type (level crossing T, level crossing X,
roundabouts and grade separated crossing);
•traffic volume for level crossings (according to
the proportion of the incoming traffic from the
minor road).
Junction zone is called an area (address) of the
junction and its approaches, i.e. 200 m on both sides of a
crossing point of road axes on major road and 150 m on
both sides of a crossing point of road axes on minor road
(Lithuanian … 2011).
Fig. 2. The process of dividing the junctions into junction groups and subgroups
2.3. Dividing the road network into homogeneous
road sections and junctions
The road network, based on the above formed road
and junction groups is divided into homogeneous road
sections and homogeneous road junctions. For dividing
the road network into homogeneous sections, data of the
surrounding environment, road parameters and traffic
volume of at least 3 last calendar years is used, described
in sub-chapter “2.1. Data collection” above.
2.4. Road network safety ranking and identification of
hazardous road sections
After having divided the road network into
homogeneous road sections and junctions, the road
network safety levels are identified. Road sections and
junctions with their own accident data get into the groups
of road sections and junctions respectively.
First stage.
Network safety
ranking in the road
and junction
groups
To distinguish the road network safety levels, it is
necessary to determine the total accident level in each
road group or junction group, i.e. to calculate accident
rate in each road or junction group. When calculating
accident rate the accident severity shall be taken into
consideration. For road links accident rate AR shows the
number of weighted injury accidents per vehicle mileage
(The Ministry ... 2011):
mLN
A
AR
⋅⋅⋅ ⋅
=
365
10
6
(1)
)()()(
lilisisikk
xAxAxAA
⋅+⋅+⋅=
(2)
where: A – number of road accidents in the studied road
group in m years, calculated by the formula
(2);
N –annual average daily traffic in the studied road
group, veh./day;
L – total length of homogeneous road sections in
the studied road group, km;
m – number of years, i.e. of how many years data
is used (m ≥ 3).
Ak – number of road accidents where at least one
person was killed;
Asi – number of road accidents where at least one
person injured undergoes in-patient
treatment;
Ali – number of road accidents where people
injured undergo out-patient treatment;
xk, xsi, xli – weight coefficients of accident severity.
For junctions accident rate is calculated similarly,
however the rate is calculated per millions of vehicles
arriving into the junction. So instead of N × L, the
number of vehicles arriving into the junction is used
(calculated by AADT’s of the legs in the studied junction,
veh./day).
Weighted evaluation of accident severity is of two
options (Sørensen, Elvik 2008):
•based on injury cost: weighted value is
calculated on a basis of socio-economical
evaluation of injuries.
•agreed: weighted value is assigned in a way
of agreement, e.g. taking into account political
objectives.
It is recommended (Sørensen, Elvik 2008) that the
weighted value is calculated based on the first option, i.e.
to use monetary expression in different severity levels of
the average number of people injured, this is a more
objective and reliable method than agreed/political
determination of values.
Having calculated AR for each road group or
junction group the safety levels of the road network are
obtained, i. e. from the total road network the group of
roads or junctions having the largest accident level is
distinguished.
After implementation of this stage, the current
network safety level is obtained in each road group or
junction group.
Hazardous road sections should be identified in
terms of the expected number of accidents. For this
purpose it is necessary to determine general expected
number of accidents in each road group or junction group
using accident prediction models (Elvik 2008a;
EC 2011).
Second stage.
Safety ranking in
the homogenous
road sections and
junctions
Hazardous road sections or junctions is any section
on the road network that has a higher expected number
and severity of accidents than other similar road sections
or junctions as a result of local and section based accident
and injury factors. Hazardous road sections are also
referred to as dangerous roads, problem roads and
accident prone locations. The expected number of
accidents is estimated by using the empirical Bayes
method (Elvik 2007).
An accident prediction model gives an estimate of
the expected number of accidents for a roadway element
that has a certain combination of traits. In most models,
these include traffic volume, characteristics of highway
geometry and type of traffic control. Most accident
prediction models will not include all factors that produce
systematic variation in accident counts. Hence, estimates
of the expected number of accidents derived from
accident prediction models are mean values for units that
have a given combination of traits. The expected number
of accidents for a specific unit will normally differ from
the mean value for units that have similar general traits.
According to the empirical Bayes method, the best
estimate of safety is obtained by combining two sources
of information:
•the accident record for a given site,
•an accident prediction model, showing how
various factors affect accident occurrence.
In the empirical Bayes method (Elvik 2008b), the
expected number of accidents of a road section is
estimated by weighting the registered number of
accidents on the road section or junction and the general
expected number of accidents for road group or junctions
group (similar sites) estimated by accident prediction
models. This method is illustrated in the following
formula (Sørensen, Elvik 2008):
AAE
⋅−+⋅=
)1()/(
αλαλ
(3)
k/1
1
λ
α
+
=
(4)
where: E(λ/A) – the local expected number of accidents
on a road section/junction;
λ – the general expected number of accidents
estimated by accident models;
A – the registered number of accidents on the road
section/junction;
k – the inverse value of the over dispersion
parameter.
The parameter α determines the weight given to the
estimated normal number of accidents for road group or
junctions group (similar sites) when combining it with the
recorded number of accidents in order to estimate the
expected number of accidents for a particular site.
Having calculated the local expected number of
accidents for each homogeneous road section or junction,
they are listed in a decreasing order of the local expected
number of accidents value. The higher position of the
road section or junction in the list the more hazardous
it is compared to the other sections of the same group.
For further evaluation, those homogeneous road sections
or junctions are selected which in their group are
characterized by a higher than the average accident
probability.
All the identified most hazardous road sections or
junctions must be analyzed and subjected to special-
purpose inspections.
2.5. In-office analysis of hazardous road sections and
junctions
In office analysis
In office analyses are carried out pursuant to
“Procedures for Road Safety Inspection”, however, the
below information shall be evaluated:
oA description of the road section or junction:
•which group,
•groups safety level;
oA reference to possible previous reports on the
same road section (if there was any report made
before);
oThe analysis of available accident reports (data
of at least 3 last calendar years is used):
•precise as possible location of the accident,
•pictures and/or diagrams of the accident
site,
•date and hour of accident,
•accident data such as accident type,
collision type, vehicle and driver
maneuver,
•accident severity, including number of
fatalities and injured persons,
•characteristics of the persons involved such
as age, sex, nationality, alcohol level, use
of safety equipment or not,
•data on the vehicles involved (type, age,
country, safety equipment if any, date of
last periodical technical check according to
applicable legislation),
•information on the road such as area type,
road type, junction type including
signalling, number of lanes, markings, road
surface, lighting and weather conditions,
speed limit, roadside obstacles,
•whenever possible, information on the time
elapsed between the time of the accident
and the recording of the accident, or the
arrival of the emergency services.
On-site observations of road-user behaviour
On-site observations of hazardous road sections or
junctions are carried out pursuant to “Procedures for
Road Safety Inspection” (Antov, Metsvahi 2011) (see
below).
3. Road safety audit and Road safety inspection
The road safety audit process started when safety
engineers realized that it is necessary to adopt the
principle of ‘prevention is better than cure’, and they
decided to use some of the safety experience from the
remedial work and design safety into new and existing
road schemes.
Road safety audit (RSA) (Proctor 2008) and road
safety inspection (RSI) is a systematic work method
contributing to safer roads and safer road traffic. In some
older references the term of audit could cover also the
present road safety inspection procedures. Road safety
inspection of existing roads is a today’s concept that has
been adopted because this term appears to be more
appropriate when associated with existing roads. In spite
of this, road safety audit and road safety inspection have
several similarities, but also essential differences,
especially regarding the procedures.
The EU Directive (EC 2008) defines road safety
inspection as an ordinary periodical verification of the
characteristics and defects that require maintenance
work for reasons of safety.
Following the principle “Prevention is better than
cure” the RSI makes it possible to evaluate existing road
traffic facilities and to improve road safety performance.
In spite of minor differences in definitions it is
important to note that the most of present practices
underline the similar characteristics of RSI and RSA:
•A RSI and RSA is systematic – this means it will
be carried out in a methodical way following a
formal procedure.
•A RSI and RSA is pro-active, trying to prevent
accidents through the identification of safety
deficiencies for remedial action rather than react
only after accidents occurred.
•A RSI relates to an existing road not roads being
constructed (those are subject of Road Safety
Audit).
•A RSI and RSA identifies and describes the
potential hazards from the road user point of
view;
•A RSI and RSA check the road and its
environment against safety principles and not
against norms.
•A RSI and RSA should be carried out by an
independent team (or person) with experience in
road safety work, accident analysis, traffic
engineering, and road user behaviour and/or road
design.
The basic concept is to provide a method that will
help the road operators to improve their knowledge of the
network by inspection visits made by someone from
outside who has a fresh look. These visits will be made
by appropriately qualified personnel after being trained
both in the method to be used and in the principal road
safety stakes.
The objective of this approach is to provide the road
operator with a tool to improve safety of the road network
by prevention and to develop “safety vigilance” of the
road; in addition, it will help the operator him in the
management by providing an independent and fresh view
on potentially risky safety issues.
To attain this objective, the approach aims to be:
•preventive,
•simple, effective and practical,
•recurrent and systematic,
•at the initiative of and for the benefit of
the road operator.
In addition to the above we should highlight the
following issues:
•Often, the roads were designed and constructed
some years or even decades ago for different
amount of traffic, motor vehicle fleet or even
different types of road users (bicyclists or
pedestrians).
•It is often a case that local road administrations
(state, private or municipal) do not have enough
safety related knowledge to analyse the road
risks in the same way and efficiency that an
independent expert can do.
•Even in some reconstructed or rehabilitated road
sections the number of accidents is recorded still
high in spite of improvements taken because the
road safety issues were in most cases not the
priorities of the project.
•It is a popular misconception that the faults or
bad behaviour of a driver are considered to be
often the main cause of road accidents. But we
know already from a number of research
findings that road infrastructure has a great
influence on safety outcomes, as contributing or
even a main factor of the crash occurrence.
The purpose of a RSI is to pro-actively manage
safety by identifying and addressing risks associated with
road safety deficiencies. Thus, the benefits of RSI can be
summarised as follows:
• It identifies potential road safety concerns for all
road users;
• It minimizes the risk and severity of road accidents
that may result from the existing situation of a road
section;
• It minimizes unsustainable losses to health and
economy.
4. Costs and benefits of RSI and RSA
RSI is an approved tool to improve road safety. With
the inspection expert knowledge and with systematic RSI,
it is possible to reduce the number and the severity of
traffic accidents by improving the road safety
performance of existing roads.
It is obvious that some RSI treatments will have
bigger impacts than others. As an example a research by
Elvik (SETRA 2008) shows significant expected accident
reductions as a result of a road safety inspection and
associated treatments:
•Correcting incorrect signs: 5 - 10% reduction of
injury accidents,
•Adding guardrails along embankments: 40 –
50% reduction of run-of-the-road injury
accidents,
•Guardrail end treatments: 0 – 10% of striking on
injury accidents reduction,
•Providing clear recovery zones: 10 – 40%
reduction of run-of-the-road injury accidents,
•Removing sight obstacles: 0 - 5% reduction of
all injury accidents,
•Yielding lighting poles: 25 – 75% of striking
poles injury accidents reduction,
•Flattering side slopes: 5 – 25% reduction of run-
of-the-road injury accidents,
•Signing on hazardous curves: 0 – 35% run-of-
the-roads-on-curves injury accident reduction.
The above listed measures are typically included in a
RSI report for short and medium term implementation.
Although, it is not always easy to quantify precisely
the economic benefits of RSI, there is strong evidence
that such inspections are highly cost-effective. With the
introduction of some typical measures like the ones
mentioned above, it is possible to save lives. Obviously,
even saving of only one human life per year in an
inspected road section, the resulting benefit of the RSI
would be much higher than the involved costs.
The cost of a road safety audit is around 4% of the
road design costs (Toth-Szabo, Varhelyi 2011). As
design costs can be in the order of 5% to 6% of total
implementation costs for larger projects, the increase in
total project cost is usually quite small. The earlier
inadequacies are identified in the design process, the
lower the cost and redundant design time will be for
rectifying these inadequacies. The earlier the better – It is
easier to make changes in the schemes in early phase of
the road design process when the deficits only exist on
paper. Deficits which are not rectified in the first phases
are less likely to be rectified later.
The cost of RSAs may vary greatly based upon
project size, scope and complexity; the composition of
the RSA team; and the level of detail of the audit. The
cost of human resources to conduct RSAs may range
from a one-day field review by in-house audit team
members to maintaining full-time auditors working on a
state-wide basis. Costs may also be higher if consultants
are retained to conduct the audit or to supplement staff
expertise on audit teams. Overall, the cost of RSA
programs are dependent on an agency's creativity in
integrating audit activities within existing project tasks,
practices and resources, and on the decision-making
methodology used to evaluate and implement audit
suggestions.
It is often difficult to identify benefits of carrying
out RSA or RSI in a quantitative way. When audit or
inspection is carried out, the recommendations written in
the report could be implemented or they are not. Still
some research carried out could give a number of good
examples here. In Denmark (Danish...1997) the first year
rate of return for safety audits was estimated to be over
149%, which figure was based on estimates for accident
savings that might be made by introducing safety audit
recommendations. TRL study (TRL...1999) of 22 audited
schemes resulted with 11000 GBP savings per audit was
achieved.
5. Conclusions
The purpose of the BALTRIS project is to develop
tools and build capacity to better manage safety of road
infrastructure in the Baltic Sea Region. This by exchange
of experience and joint development of road
infrastructure safety management procedures, road safety
impact assessment, road safety inspections and road
safety audits and evaluation of high accident
concentration sections.
According to the NSR procedure, traffic accidents
with injury have to be registered continuously, but it is
also important that information about traffic volume, road
design and surrounding environment are maintained and
updated all the time because both traffic and roads change
over time for example as a result of traffic safety
engineering. It is important that this information is
updated, because it is used as input to the road
classification, the division of the road system into road
sections, in the making of accident prediction models and
in the comparison of hazardous locations and safe
locations or the normal accident pattern. When a location
is changed, it is also important to record when the
reconstruction is made, because this information should
be used in the comparison of different locations,
calculation of the normal accident pattern and possibly in
a before-after evaluation.
The general safety level changes over time. The
accident prediction models should also be reestimated
continuously. It is not needed to be done every year, but it
is recommended that it be done in a 3 – 5 years cycle.
The updating is especially needed if the police
recorded accidents in the accident database are
supplemented with hospital recorded traffic accidents as
recommended.
The aim of the itinerary RSI is to report on the
particularities of a road, it’s surrounding area and it’s
general environment (hereinafter referred to as “events”
in this guide) that can influence user behaviour or affect
his passive safety and thus have repercussions on road
safety. In the core part of the RSI the deficiencies on the
road should be detected that may cause accidents or
could have an influence on the severity of accidents.
The essential principles of the RSI are:
interdisciplinary detailed analysis of the road and the road
environment; identification of possible accidental risks;
analyses of the condition of road users’ perception and
quality of guidance; formal check of the performance of
road equipment.
The benefits of the road safety audit process should
be considered as the combination of the direct reductions
in road trauma from design and site specific treatments
and the qualitative improvements to the road safety
performance of a road agency and associated
organisations. Benefits of RSA are of the following kind:
throwaway costs and reconstruction cost to correct safety
deficiencies identified once roads are in-service are either
avoided or substantially reduced; lifecycle costs are
reduced since safer designs often carry lower
maintenance costs (e.g., flattened slope versus guardrail);
societal costs collisions are reduced by safer roads and
fewer, less-severe crashes; liability claims, a component
of both agency and societal costs, are reduced; safer road
network; a better understanding and documentation of
road safety engineering; eventual safety improvements to
standards and procedures; more explicit consideration of
the safety needs of vulnerable road users, and the
encouragement of other personnel in road safety.
It should be noted, that in some countries the
accordance of the local condition with guidelines and
norms are considered to be an essential part of RSI, while
in other countries this issue is performed separately
unless there is no clear effect on safety issues. As it is
evident that RSI and RSA are getting more international
where single auditors or inspection teams can and will
perform RSI and RSA in foreign countries, it is necessary
to harmonize the main principles, procedures and rules
among countries, which is one of the most important
issues of the BALTRIS project, covering Latvia,
Lithuania and Estonia and also Sweden) as minimum, but
this information could be with some value also for other
countries.
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