Road Safety Audit Nitty Gritty Design Stage Audits

Andrew P OBrien, Deborah Donald

Road Safety Audit is a pro-active process to improve road safety. 1. INTRODUCTION Within the Austroads Guidelines for Road Safety Audit, there are presently five recognised stages at which a road safety audit is usually conducted - feasibility or concept design stage, draft design stage, detailed design stage, pre-opening stage and an existing road audit. The revised guidelines due out in 2000, are likely to add a further important and discrete stage auditing during construction (including construction traffic management schemes). Individual road authorities will select the stages of road safety audit for their road safety management processes. The 1994 AUSTROADS Guidelines 5 Audit Stages (6 stages post year 2000) are:

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4A Stage 4B Stage 5 -

Feasibility design Preliminary design Detailed design During construction/traffic management (post 2000) Pre-opening Post-opening, existing conditions

Design auditing (Stages 1 to 3) requires a far greater understanding of road design, traffic design, and road safety engineering than do later stages of auditing. There is also a need to be able to visualise future roadway conditions from design drawings. The authors draw on their experience to outline some of the issues that typically arise in design audits, and how they are managed. The paper provides an opportunity for others to draw on these experiences, and to gain an understanding of the benefits of design audits. What Is An Audit? The typical dictionary states that an Audit is an Official Examination i.e. it is a formal process. Road Safety Audit is a formal process that enables road safety to be an explicit factor in project analysis design and management. Road Safety Audit - Objectives The objectives of Road Safety Audit are to:

identify and eliminate potential hazards in new roads;

ensure inclusion of known safety features and forgiving elements in new roadworks; identify and propose treatment of potential crash-causing elements on existing roads.

Audit of What? Is Road Safety Audit an audit of design and management process, design standards, or outcomes? It may include each of the above. Importantly, the processes need to be in place such that safety is explicit in project decision-making. As a result of auditing, many changes have been made to design standards in Australia and New Zealand. Most importantly, the outcomes from auditing, where adopted, will on average contribute significantly to safer road systems.

2. WHO SHOULD AUDIT AND WHEN? It has become clear from the Road Safety Audit experiences of ourselves and other auditors, that Design Stage audits MUST be undertaken by auditors who have extensive experience and expertise in design and safety. To have a sustainable audit program, younger auditors need to be provided with experience by working with the more experienced designers and auditors. Most audit procedures recommend that audit teams be used. This allows the less experienced auditor to gain experience, but also allows different skills to be brought to the audit process. A note on Quality Assurance it does NOT ensure safe design! It puts in place procedures and trails for checking on post event failures, and it allows safe design to be achieved it does not ensure safe design. The earlier that a project is audited in the design process the better. Early auditing can achieve better results at much lower remedial cost. We would also argue that the earlier within each Stage, the better the outcome.

3. THE STAGES OF DESIGN AUDITING 3.1 Feasibility (Planning) Stage By providing a specific safety input at the feasibility stage of a road or development scheme, road safety audit can influence fundamental issues such as route choice,

standards, impact on and continuity with the existing adjacent network, and intersection or interchange provision and location. For traffic management schemes or other small improvements this stage may be less significant, but can still offer useful safety benefits. For example, one New Zealand scheme for a blackspot treatment had the CHOICE of intersection treatment type changed from traffic signals to a roundabout as a result of a Stage 1 audit. Another project, for a road alignment through difficult terrain, is going through its THIRD Stage 1 audit, each of a different scheme developed as a consequence of the previous audit demonstrating the value of an audit in getting it right before it is too late to change. Other projects have been the Road Safety Audit assessment of a set of alignment alternatives for a 40km rural freeway project, and the audit of alternative interchange concept designs for a busway. It is usual with a Stage 1 audit that at least two alternative schemes are audited. If land acquisition and other associated legal matters become finalised after this stage is completed, subsequent changes in road alignment become very difficult to achieve. 3.2 Preliminary or Draft Design (Scheme Development) Stage The audit at the preliminary design stage aims to identify potential safety and operational issues that may be addressed prior to detailed design, then construction. Compromises, in terms of operation, safety and cost, will need to be considered. Road Safety Design Principles need to be followed in order to produce a safe "product". Principles include:

creating safe roadsides at places with highest likelihood of crashes occurring typically intersections and bends; minimising the likelihood of vehicle/vehicle crashes occurring; ensuring that, if a crash occurs, then the likelihood of injury is minimised; managing risks, such that the risk of major safety problems occurring is less than the risks of minor problems occurring; ensuring that safety related design criteria (e.g. critical sight distances) are or can be met.

The major issues in feasibility design phase Road Safety Audit are:

function; choice of traffic control, intersection types, and roadway alignments; intersection and interchange geometry; vertical and horizontal alignment;

specification of clearzones, and their subsequent requirements; sight distances; cross sections; identification and elimination or protection of roadside hazards.

Note that the Road Safety Audit is not about ensuring that a project meets minimum design criteria, but rather that the overall design is the safest that can be achieved without incurring significant additional costs. After this stage, as land acquisition and other associated legal matters have usually been finalised, subsequent changes in road alignment involving land acquisition are most difficult. 3.3 Detailed Design Stage This audit stage occurs during or on completion of the detailed road design, but (hopefully) before the preparation of construction contract documents. Attention to detail at this design stage can do much to reduce the costs and disturbance associated with last minute changes which may otherwise be necessary at the pre-opening audit stage. The purpose of a typical audit could be:

to examine the proposed standards and detailed design plans for the reconstruction and widening of a road and its environs, and to identify any likely safety problems; to suggest and recommend changes to provide a suitable level of safety for all classes of road users, while recognising the implications of such suggestions and recommendations. to provide other relevant road safety observations germane to the project.

A Stage 3 Audit includes consideration of factors such as:

vertical and horizontal alignments, and associated sight distances and sight lines; cross-section elements; the mix and proportions of user types, including provision for vulnerable road users; intersection, interchange, and access designs; line markings, signals, lighting, signing; clearances to roadside objects (need for crash barriers/frangibility of fixed objects); characteristics of the speed environment and roadside environment; future roadside conditions and potential roadside hazards;

likely crash types, locations, and severity.

Road Safety Principles Road Safety Design Principles need to be followed in order to produce a safe product. This at times may involve moving away from pre-set standards, where such standards are inappropriate for the circumstances. Principles include:

minimising the likelihood of crashes occurring through safety-conscious planning and design; creating safe roadsides and conditions at places with highest likelihood of crashes occurring typically at intersections, and where road cross-sections change; ensuring that, if a crash occurs, then the likelihood of injury is minimised; ensuring that safety related design criteria (e.g. critical sight distances) have been met; managing risks, such that the risk of major safety problems occurring is less than the risk of minor problems occurring.

4. BENEFITS TO BE GAINED FROM AUDITING Stage 1 to 3 design audits are where the major benefits of road safety audit are generated. Several projects on which we have had an involvement have had estimated benefits of up to several million dollars as a result of the audits. The benefits have included:

A saving of about $3m in capital costs due to a change of scheme in a stage 1/stage 2 audit; A community saving of about $100,000 per annum in crash costs as a result of a scheme modification (stage 1); Savings from avoiding the need for 2km of W-beam guardrail ($150,000 capital plus crash costs) due to progressive stage 4 (during construction) modifications; Numerous examples of minor savings in construction costs and future crash costs through design modification to remove fixed roadside objects or hazards.

5. CONFORMING TO STANDARDS! (Road Safety Audit is NOT a Standards Check) Safety goes beyond compliance with standards. An audit is not and must not be conducted as a checking of compliance with standards. An audit is a professional

assessment of the likely level of safety of a project during construction and when it is fully operational. Suitable standards are a necessary component of a safe design. Most designers are not well trained in the safety trade-offs that occur when applying conflicting relevant standards, which is where many safety problems arise. An experienced road safety auditor appreciates which standards enhance safety, which standards provide road users with poor levels of safety, and those that can even be dangerous. This is not to say that a standards check or standards compliance reviews should not also be used. Standards compliance will tend to have the benefit of providing consistency of treatment for road users a recognised contributor to road safety. Reasons why standards may not provide adequate safety can include (Morgan 1999):

the standard being used may be a superseded one; the standard may be based on old information, which is no longer accepted; the standard may not be applicable to the circumstances in the design; standards typically only cover the more common arrangements and this design is more complex; standards may take a long time to be amended, in response to new knowledge; the combination of design elements may make two separately safe standards unsafe when put together.

6. ADDING VALUE Progressive or Interactive Auditing during Design and Construction Road Safety Auditing can add value to most projects directly as well as indirectly (through the community benefits of improved road safety). One of the best ways to add value is through Interactive Auditing. This offers greatest value during the preliminary and detailed design processes. Interactive auditing is a process whereby the designer refers potential safety issues to the auditor (via the project manager) during the design process. Most average to good designers know when a matter is at least contentious in road safety terms. This process enables decisions on road safety to be made progressively through the design process rather than waiting until design is completed and documented. We encourage a pre-design road safety issues meeting at which the general nature of safety issues typical of the project being designed can be discussed. This alerts the designer to the types of issues that the auditor will be looking for. In many situations, a

good designer KNOWS when an issue is contentious, and through this process can refer them to the auditor for quick resolution. Similarly, on major projects, many opportunities can arise to make safety improvements during the construction. In the ALPURT motorway project in Auckland, six pre-opening audit inspections were undertaken. Many minor issues were nipped in the bud, and many other opportunities arose to make field changes that both saved construction costs (about $200,000) and future crash costs. Suggesting Treatments and Suggesting Improvements Can something be done safer? Can it be done better? Pure Road Safety Auditing avoids providing advice as to the appropriate treatment of the identified problems. Many clients however, greatly appreciate any assistance in resolving the problems identified in the audit. So long as the proposed treatments are generic, or indicative, and can be demonstrated to be feasible, then we believe that this can significantly add value to the project being audited. Further, it makes little sense to inform a client that, for example, there is a serious pedestrian safety problem with the proposed design for pedestrians crossing the road (as has been known to occur in an audit report) - without discussion as to the nature of the problem, possibly why it is a problem, and what can be done about it. Changing Standards One major benefit that has been generated by the Road Safety Audit process is the review of inappropriate design standards. Several government departments in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada have initiated changes to standards due to Road Safety Audits.

7. LESSONS FROM EXISTING CONDITIONS SAFETY PROBLEMS The comment that needs to be made about every safety problem found in the field during Stage 4 and 5 audits is someone designed it that way! There are design lessons to be learnt from all such situations. The following sample of photographs provides some examples of recent constructed safety problems. In several cases the problems had been identified in a design audit, but not acted upon due to an administrative notification error.

Median guardrail does not protect cross drain (Aust)

Numerous safety issues all identified in a design audit but not acted on (NZ)

Lack of pavement visibility at roundabout - identified in a design audit but not acted on (NZ)

40cm high bridge kerb beside oncoming traffic, with private commercial access on the left (NZ)

Which lanes go where? Turn arrows become through arrows, then turn arrows again (Calif.)

Pedestrian hazards Amsterdam

8. CONCLUSIONS Experience gained from numerous Design Stage Road Safety Audits strongly supports the following:

there are great benefits to be gained from design stage audits; the earlier and more frequent the audits the greater the benefits (at a high benefit/cost ratio); good design auditors need special skills in design, road safety engineering, and the ability to visualise design outcomes at least 10 years relevant experience is probably necessary; it need not be a painful process for any persons involved.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ANDREW O'BRIEN P.T.O.E. B.E. B.A., Cert. T. P. & C, FITE, FAITPM, ARAPI Andrew O'Brien is Managing Director of the Andrew O'Brien & Associates Pty Ltd. He had fourteen years of traffic engineering and transport planning experience with the Country Roads Board (now VicRoads), Ministry of Transport and Road Traffic Authority, and has had fifteen years as a consultant. He has been involved in many road safety audits, road safety/design training courses, and road safety studies including the provision of advice to the numerous local, state and national road authorities. This advice has included innovative methods of addressing traffic and safety problems. He lectured at FIT and WIAE for 12 years, and has been a guest lecturer at VicRoads, Monash University, University of Melbourne, RMIT University, and University of Maryland (U.S.). He has prepared course material and numerous publications on a range of traffic and safety subjects, and been a presenter and/or course manager of numerous Road Safety Audit Training Courses in Australia, Singapore, Canada and the USA. He has been working with Canadian consultants, and with the ITE and FHWA in the US to assist in bringing Road Safety Audit into Canada and the US. He has been involved in and managed over 150 road safety audits in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Canada. DEBORAH DONALD BE (Civil), M.Eng.Sc., MAITPM, MITE Deborah Donald is an Associate of the Andrew O'Brien & Associates Pty Ltd. She spent the first seven years of her career at VicRoads, where she undertook road planning, road design and road construction activities. In 1991 she joined ARRB Transport Research where her main areas of activity involved road safety, traffic engineering, traffic signs, speed zoning and development of computer software. She has published over 35 papers and reports on a wide range of road safety/traffic engineering issues. Deborah joined Andrew O'Brien & Associates in 1997, and has

been involved as a presenter at several road safety audit workshops and has been a team member or reviewer for numerous road safety audits.

The authors have been involved in more than 50 design stage road safety audits, from Stage 1 (feasibility) to Stage 3 (detailed design) in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, as well as many Stage 4 and Stage 5 audits. References Morgan R. What Makes a Safe Road? - Safety versus Standards LGPro, Melbourne, (1999) O'Brien A P, "Changes in Road Safety Audit in Practice" - 9th REAAA Conference Wellington NZ, (1998)