All you Wanted to Know About Road Safety Audits

Traffic engineering consultants in Sydney design and implement effective traffic engineering solutions to ensure safe and hassle-free movement of people and materials. Researchers study current traffic conditions for a particular intersection or lane, and predict future traffic flows to and from areas anticipated to be generated by proposed developmental projects. A holistic traffic management solution not only aims to resolve problems such as traffic congestion and delay by recommending remedial steps,  but also includes details on measures to ensure the effectiveness of such steps.

Planning and executing a road safety audit helps traffic engineering consultants in Sydney and other big cities achieve this objective.

RSA: An Introduction  

EB Traffic Solutions prepares a comprehensive road safety audit checklist that includes parameters to examine the safety of existing or proposed roads/intersections. Our road safety audit teams comprise experts with varied backgrounds including safety engineers, highway design engineers, and maintenance personnel to ensure all possible perspectives to road safety are brought to the table. The main objective of an RSA is to identify current and potential road safety issues and suggest measures to overcome them.

Parties involved

Clients planning a RSA need to get in touch with two parties:

• A service provider with  an expert team that has years of experience performing specialized audits. The team will study safety issues and suggest measures to address any concerns.
• An expert team comprising professionals well-versed with road safety concepts and qualified to comment on findings of the audit team and the road design, if necessary.

Accepting or rejecting the recommendations of both parties is solely at the client’s discretion.

Importance

You need the services of a road safety auditor, even if you’re already working with professional highway engineers, whose expertise helps you craft optimal geometric designs for the proposed development but is limited when it comes to testing them for safety. Road safety audit teams step in to fill this void by applying their expert knowledge to ascertain whether the road design complies with the relevant road safety standards. Road designers may not possess detailed understanding of factors that impact human-vehicle-road interactions, and in most cases, may not be able to predict future safety issues. Planning and executing a road safety audit doesn’t cost much and is a financially attractive alternative to undertaking extensive construction projects.

The process  

Conducting road safety audits requires detailed planning and most providers break down the procedure into the following steps for the sake of simplicity and to ensure co-ordination between different parties involved:

Initiation

The client will authorize the auditor to start working on the project. They must issue all the instructions in writing including the report format, submission deadlines and must include terms that put the onus on the designer to respond to the findings of the audit, and re-design, if necessary.

Make all the details available to the audit team

Next, both the client and the designer need to provide necessary information such as traffic forecasts, crash history (of the site), pedestrian and vehicle movement patterns, details of the marking plan, and the location of public transportation stops to the audit team.

Site inspection by the auditor

After getting a briefing from the client, the auditor must inspect the site (a day as well as a night inspection) to understand documented and undocumented safety issues. They must then make a provisional assessment report based on their findings.

A meeting between the client, designer and audit team  

Before work on the project commences, the designer, client, and audit team must come together for a commencement meeting. The aim of the interaction must be to discuss the scope of works, any issues and define the respective roles of all the parties, to set up communication lines, and discuss additional requirements.

Execution

Experts from the audit team must visit the site after reading the project reports and examining the drawings to record their observations about the safety issues. They must then suggest measures to solve the problems and prepare the draft report.

The suggestions must be based on the following principles:

• Ensure safety for all users including motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians.
• Include provisions to warn drivers and pedestrians about the road conditions.
• Include provisions to help drivers manage their speed and avoid surprises such as blind turns, and sudden intersections.
• Ensure road design consistency.

The audit report

The audit report must define the safety issues (both general and specific) and suggest recommendations to address these problems in a tabular format. The team leader must sign the report before submitting it to the client.

Completion meeting

After the client receives the audit report, they will forward it to the designer for review. The designer then provides feedback on the auditor’s recommendations, after which the client may then request both parties to attend a completion meeting. The aim of the exercise must be to foster constructive dialogue between all the parties to find the best possible solution to the resolution of any identified issues.

Final audit record

The client would review all the recommendations and state their preferred outcome against the recommendations they reject. Both the client as well as the designer would sign the final audit record.

Follow up

The client will instruct the designer to make the necessary amendments. For projects of a detailed nature, the RSA team leader must continue overseeing the project and provide any support as needed by the designer.

Final few words

Road safety audit is a detailed and comprehensive process and involves varying levels of complexities. You, therefore, need a provider offering a gamut of traffic engineering services to avoid pitfalls. EB Traffic Solutions is a reputable engineering consultant located in Sydney. We have years of experience of designing and implementing effective traffic engineering solutions and can help you avoid hassles when designing and executing traffic engineering projects. Call us at 0408 395 729 or fill out our contact form and we’ll get back to you to discuss your requirement with no delay.