Road Safety A Good Practice Guide First Edition A Road Safety Good Practice Guide DFT oduct code 01PRSD0457 Pr A Road Safety Good Practice Guide for Highway Authorities First Edition March 2006 Department for Transport: London First published in June 2001 by Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions and reprinted March 2006 by Department for Transport Great Minster House 76 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DR Internet service www.dft.gov.uk © Crown copyright 2001, 2006. Copyright in the typographical arrangement and design rests with the Crown. This publication (excluding the Royal Arms and logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided that it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright with the title and source of the publication specified. Further copies of this report are available from: Department for Transport PO Box 236 Wetherby West Yorkshire LS23 7NB Tel: 0870 1226 236 Fax: 0870 1226 237 Textphone: 0870 1207 405 E-mail: [email protected] Published by the Department for Transport on material containing a minimum of 75% genuine recycled fibre. Product code 01PRSD0457 ContentsA Road Safety• A RoadGood SafetyPractice Good Guide Practice for Highway Guide forAuthorities Highway Authorities Acknowledgements The substance of this Guide was prepared by TRL Ltd. The main authors at TRL were Judith Barker and Chris Baguley. They would like to acknowledge the many staff at TRL who made significant contributions to both drafting parts of the Guide and advising on its content. The authors are also indebted to all those highway authorites, central government departments and other organisations who responded either to a questionnaire or direct contact requesting information about their recent good examples of accident remedial schemes and their views on the contents of the Guide. The authors are particularly grateful to the following authorities who willingly provided information and photographs on specific sites: Bracknell Forest Council Ceredigion County Council Glasgow City Council Hertfordshire County Council Kingston-upon-Hull City Council London Borough of Sutton Luton Borough Council Oxfordshire County Council Norfolk County Council Southampton City Council South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council Sunderland City Council Swindon Borough Council Vale of Glamorgan Council Wolverhampton City Council York City Council Most of the photographs in the main body of the text are provided courtesy of TRL Limited. i Appendixes • A Road Safety Good Practice Guide for Highway Authorities ii Contents• A• RoadA Road Safety Safety Good GoodPractice Practice Guide for Guide Highway for Authorities Highway Authorities Contents 01 Introduction 1.1 Purpose 1.1 Scope 1.1 Structure 1.2 Background 1.4 02 Planning, liaison and consultation 2.1 Management of safety 2.1 Liaison and consultation 2.2 Role of road safety officers 2.6 Role of road safety engineers 2.7 Road safety qualifications 2.8 03 General principles 3.1 Integration with Local Transport Plans 3.1 Accident and casualty analysis: identifying problems 3.3 Identifying and prioritising problems 3.5 Data issues 3.8 Importance of rural accident remedial work 3.9 Importance of exposure 3.11 Proxies for exposure variables 3.11 Importance of traffic flows and road class 3.12 Finding solutions 3.13 Detailed investigation 3.13 Site visits 3.13 Vulnerable road users 3.14 Detailed design 3.15 Economic Justification 3.17 Options for funding schemes 3.19 Installation issues 3.20 Safety audit 3.20 Learning from success and failure 3.22 04 Treatment selection 4.1 Engineering measures 4.1 URBAN roads 4.3 URBAN major road junctions 4.6 URBAN major road links 4.9 URBAN town centres 4.11 URBAN residential roads 4.14 RURAL roads 4.18 RURAL villages 4.21 Motorways 4.23 RURAL dual-carriageways 4.26 RURAL dual-carriageway junctions 4.26 iii Contents • A Road Safety Good Practice Guide for Highway Authorities RURAL dual-carriageway links 4.28 RURAL major single-carriageways 4.29 RURAL major single-carriageway junctions 4.30 RURAL major single-carriageway links 4.30 RURAL minor single-carriageways 4.32 RURAL minor single-carriageways junctions 4.33 RURAL minor single-carriageways links 4.35 Non-engineering measures 4.37 Role of road safety officers 4.37 Safe Routes to School 4.38 What is a school travel plan? 4.39 The walking bus 4.40 Pre-school – Children’s Traffic Club 4.40 Primary school training 4.41 Cycle training 4.41 Pre-driver training 4.42 Adult road user training 4.43 Publicity 4.43 05 Measuring effectiveness 5.1 Monitoring matters 5.1 When to monitor 5.1 Control sites 5.3 Overall assessment of monitoring 5.4 Data quality 5.4 Police involvement and publicity 5.5 Accident monitoring 5.6 Monitoring vehicle speeds 5.6 Automatic speed monitoring 5.8 Radar/laser speed monitoring 5.8 Where to monitor vehicle speeds 5.9 Journey time monitoring 5.10 Flow monitoring 5.11 Monitoring pedestrian movements 5.11 Monitoring pedal cycle and two-wheeled motor vehicle movements 5.12 Monitoring vehicle (time or distance) headways or inter-vehicle gaps 5.12 Monitoring traffic conflicts 5.12 Attitude surveys 5.13 Road user surveys 5.14 Environmental monitoring 5.14 Evaluation 5.17 Evaluation of traffic speed data 5.17 Evaluation of public perception 5.17 Evaluation of accident changes 5.18 iv Contents • A Road Safety Good Practice Guide for Highway Authorities Standard tests of accident changes 5.18 The Tanner k test (magnitude of the change) 5.19 The Chi-Squared test (significance of the change) 5.19 Test for statistical significance between two proportions 5.19 Other factors to consider: 5.19 Regression to the mean 5.19 Accident migration 5.20 Behaviour adaptation 5.21 First Year Rate of Return (FYRR) 5.22 Net Present Value (NPV) 5.22 06 Bibliography 6.1 Traffic Advisory Leaflets 6.2 Departmental Local Transport Notes 6.4 Departmental Advice Notes 6.5 Departmental Standards 6.9 Departmental SH Standards – for use in Scotland only 6.11 Other References and Publications (in alphabetical order) 6.12 07 Abbreviations 7.1 08 Feedback 8.1 Appendix A – Road Accident Countermeasures Appendix B – Statistical Tests Appendix C – MOLASSES v Chapter 1 • Introduction 01 Introduction Purpose 1.1 This is the second publication in the good practice advice series on local transport. This guide shares good practice, to help achieve the targets set out in DETR’s road safety strategy Tomorrow’s roads – safer for everyone (DETR, 2000b). 1.2 This guide has been developed primarily as a reference for local authority staff with an interest in road safety engineering and associated issues. However, we also hope that it will interest a wider audience, including the police, the Highways Agency, local health authorities, local communities, businesses, and transport interest groups. 1.3 It is hoped that the guide will particularly benefit those new to road safety engineering, whether they are just starting their careers or are transferring from a related discipline. 1.4 This guide is intended to be a living document, which will be updated over time as knowledge and experience develop. Consequently other existing and new examples of good practice will be sought and we particularly welcome feedback from practitioners (see chapter 8). Scope 1.5 A number of documents that advise on various aspects of road safety1 management, including the design of engineering measures and schemes, are already in the public domain. This document aims to draw together existing advice as far as possible into one document, and to update it, based on the most recent experience of local authorities and agencies (see examples, Appendix A), and on research results. 1.6 Consequently, the level of detail varies, and it follows that this guide is not intended to be a fully comprehensive document to be used in 1This guide is concerned with road safety only. It does not deal directly with the security of persons or property. 1.1 Contents • A Road Safety Good Practice Guide for Highway Authorities isolation. Where a subject is covered in depth in up-to-date publications elsewhere, the subject may be dealt with more briefly and reference will be made to the other sources of information in the text. Additional references that may be of use are given only in the bibliography. Where there is little current published information available, we deal with the topic more fully in this guide. 1.7 The good practice in this guide is not only based on the full Local Transport Plans (LTPs) submitted by local authorities, but also on other aspects that DETR considers good practice. Also included are innovative examples provided by local authorities, thought to be successful, but which are too recent to be proven so. 1.8 Strenuous efforts have been made to provide accurate, up-to-date and full coverage of the issues relating to road safety engineering and good practice, with the focus on engineering. However, it should be noted that much of the contents is taken on good faith and some subjective judgements have been relied upon in the choice of approach. Readers should also be aware that what constitutes good practice in one authority, or on a particular road, or under one set of specific conditions, may not be good practice if simply replicated elsewhere. This is due to the complexity of the many interacting factors affecting safety. Similarly, it should also be noted that there is not one definition of good practice, as no single definition could cover everything. Structure 1.9 This guide has eight chapters: • Chapter 1 comprises the above purpose and scope of this guide and a background introduction to road accidents in Great Britain.