23 October 2008 - 18 November 2008, 00:00 -

Road Safety Audit Guidelines 2008 Conference

All road users are set to benefit from important new guidelines in Road Safety Auditing –lining up the process with modern initiatives in highway and street design.

The purpose of producing the new document is to revise and update IHT’s original safety audit guidelines published in 1996. The revision combines guidance from the latest RSA standard HD19/03 from the Design Manual for Roads & Bridges Road Safety Audit with recommendations of the Manual for Streets (MfS) published by Department for Transport in 2007.

The Road Safety Audit Guidelines (RSAG), published by IHT, give a new flexible approach to auditing that encompasses all of the latest industry thinking including Quality Audits. The RSAG were launched at a series of four conferences in Kendal, London, Birmingham and Edinburgh.

Steve Proctor of TMS Consultancy and also the managing editor of RSAG explained that the guidelines needed revising because since the previous guidelines were released, HD19/03 and Manual for Streets has had a significant impact on road safety audit. He also gave results from a questionnaire survey carried out for the project, to which 60 local authorities responded. Eighty six percent claim to carry out audits on major highway schemes; the percentage was lower for smaller schemes. For audits based on HD 19/03, the percentile was 54.

Steve also talked delegates through the RSAG and explained that various sections of the guidelines are aimed at different groups in the Road Safety Audit process. The main recommendations from the guidelines are:

(i) permissive flexible approach, not rigid
(ii) 13 main recommendations in Executive Summary:
Purpose, Scope, Audit Team, Process, Policy, Developer Audits, Private Sector, Risk Assessment, Safety Assessment
(iii) More detailed recommendations in individual chapters

Andrew Pledge of Passive Revolution, the non profit making organisation promoting passive safety design also spoke at the launch of RSAG. He said that about 15% of fatal road events are characteristically single vehicles colliding with obstacles, particularly street furniture such as sign posts and lighting columns. “Some accidents will always happen because people make mistakes but we can lesson the results by engineering less sudden impacts using passive safety products and allowing plenty of space.”

Chris Feltham of Transport for London outlined their process for assessing whether pedestrian guardrailing could be removed from a site. A risk assessment sheet is completed of the site. The completed assessment will indicate whether removal or provision of guardrail is (1) not advised, (2) could be removed if other engineering is done to the site; and (3) can be removed. This process allows an auditable trail in assessing the use of pedestrian guardrailing.

One section of the RSAG guidelines focuses on how local authorities can put together their own RSA policies. At the London conference, Kent County Council road safety engineer Jo Horton explained how Kent’s RSA policy developed under the principle that “the Council will subject all of its work on the highway to a road safety audit”. Now based on HD 19/03, Kent’s RSA process has gone through “evolutionary” changes over the past two decades to keep it up to date and useable, Ms Horton explained.

The launch of IHT’s new guidelines has been accompanied by the introduction of an interactive road safety audit checklists available on the IHT website and developed in collaboration by IHT with TMS Consultancy and Lancashire County Council. The interactive checklists can be found here. The website has downloadable checklists for guidance when conducting road safety audits and the results can be filtered based on the particulars of what is being assessed. The website also has an area for local and national policies, as well as links to other RSA related sites and a feedback facility, and we would encourage all council’s to submit their policies to this website. The pages will be maintained by TMS, Lancashire County Council and IHT’s Society of Road Safety Auditors (SoRSA).

SoRSA Chair Libby Sands told conference delegates about the society: “SoRSA is a professional voice for auditors offering specialist support for practitioners.” Membership of the society is defined by the competency level of auditors and the society’s committee is planning to develop professional qualifications and training for auditors.

Ms Sands also explained the objectives of a proposed European standard on road safety which will include a policy for having certified auditors. Mr Bartlett, a SoRSA committee member speaking at the London conference said “At least one auditor in a team will have to be certified and have achieved a certain level of training. Mr Bartlett went on to say “As members of SoRSA, practitioners will be able to use their level of membership as a proof of competency.”

Presentations (all speakers listed in first event, only unique presentations listed under individual conferences)

Kendal

London