What is a Road Safety Audit?
A road safety audit is a formalised assessment of road facilities to identify possible and probable road safety in new and proposed road and infrastructure projects, existing roadways and infrastructure, and roadworks and infrastructure under construction.
Why conduct a Road Safety Audit?
- Research in the UK has found that on sites with audited designs the average annual number of casualties dropped from 2.08 to 0.83 compared with non-audited sites which dropped from 2.6 to 2.34*.
- To ensure new road facilities incorporate current safety and accessibility principals during conceptual and design stages.
- To minimise the potential for accidents during and post construction.
- To minimise the possibility of legal action against authorities, architects, designers, developers, planners and contractors.
- To ensure pedestrian safety and accessibility.
*Safety & Security for Road Infrastructure, ITS International, March/April 2005, page 9
Which project and how many audits?
To meet the ever demanding constraints of shrinking budget allocations it is critical to make certain that any concept development, design and construction expenditure is incurred just once.
A project of any size can benefit from an audit, even minor works. Generally an audit should be undertaken at the design/planning phase, traffic management/construction phase and pre-opening phase.
Legal & Economic Safeguards
Modern trends are towards lawsuits and litigation. The possibility of accidents, property damage, human suffering and costly legal action should be a major consideration of government road authorities, engineering companies, consultants and contractors.
How long will the audit take?
This is dependant on the size of the project and the component being audited, but a typical concept traffic management plan can normally be turned around in a few business days, and a design audit normally within 5-7 business days. For a post-implementation traffic management audit, every effort is made to submit a report of the site within 24 hours, however, issues identified are usually raised on site with traffic management staff so that they can address them immediately.
What do I do with the findings of the audit?
This answer to this is often in the construction contract, but usually the suggestions are actioned and if there is no action to be taken, then a justification should be provided or dispensation sought from the relevant road authority.
Do I need to contact the auditor again?
The actions/justifications from the engineer/designer can be sent through to RSA for review but is not technically a requirement.
Why should I use RSA P/L for the audit?
RSAâs core business is auditing and its experience is unparalleled in the industry. RSA has an ongoing service commitment to clients to ensure they have the follow-up advice they need to carry out the project with due regard to road safety.
Although standards/guidelines/testing are used to guide an audit, RSA provides feasible solutions so that projects are not delayed.