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Keeping Road Safety Audits Relevant
- 1. KEEPING ROAD SAFETY AUDITS RELEVANT: A REVIEW OF THE GUIDE TO ROAD SAFETY PART 6
- 2. Presentation overview The Austroads Road Safety Audit Guide is currently being reviewed. The project is in its final stages, with a draft Guide being produced, awaiting final agreement from Austroads members. This presentation will highlight the proposed changes to the Guide
- 3. Road Safety Audit in Australia 1994 2002 2009
- 4. • 2-year program delivery • Alignment of current road safety audit processes and practice with a Safe System approach to road safety. • Harmonisation of road safety audit processes across Australia and New Zealand jurisdictions. • Production of a clear, concise and easy to use guide for practitioners. Review of GRS Part 6: Road Safety Audit
- 5. • Question put to Working Group • Review international practice – Guidelines – Training – Accreditation/certification Is There a Need For a Review?
- 6. • A Safe System approach for road safety audits. • Risk management and a hierarchy of control framework. • A model Australian and New Zealand road safety audit training and accreditation framework. • Road safety audit team composition. • Warrants for road safety audit. • Extending the reach - auditing road and traffic related areas. • The relevance and use of crash data for road safety audits. • Recommendations and responding to road safety audits. • Tools and technology to assist road safety audits. • Road safety audit checklists. Road Safety Audit – the Review scope
- 7. • Part I Overview – The Fundamentals –a general overview of road safety audit • For all who engage road safety audit expertise • for those who conduct road safety audits. • Part II-Guidance for Project Managers or Sponsors • written for those who need to engage a road safety team to review a project and who will need to consider the findings of the audit. • Part III- Guidance for the Audit Team • written for those who will undertake road safety audits – the team members and the team leaders. The Proposed New Guide
- 8. • The Fundamental Principles – Parties Involved • Client Team • Audit Team • Specialist Advisors • Communication – Audit Team Requirements • Training and Certification • Criteria for certification • Number of Auditors • Independence • Skills Relevant Part I -Overview
- 9. • Project Manager –delivers the project • Project Sponsor – responsible for funding the project • Project Stakeholder –includes planners, construction managers, asset managers, operations managers • Design Team –prepares the relevant designs for the project • Construction Team –for issues encountered during construction, and for controlling traffic during any roadworks • Service Provider – any person, contractor or organisation required to deliver services, e.g. supplier and layer of bituminous materials Client Team
- 10. • Professional experience 2 years • Field of experience Road safety engineering, traffic engineering, road design, crash investigation, human factors or other road safety discipline • Training Completion of recognised road safety audit training course • Maintenance of experience 2 road safety audits or inspections within 2 years prior, including one design and one construction/post-construction as a qualified team member • or Completion of an approved refresher audit course in the 2 years prior Criteria for Audit Team Member
- 11. • Professional experience Seven years • Field of experience Road safety engineering, traffic engineering, road design or crash investigation • Audit experience Five road safety audits/ inspections: – two design stage – two post-construction stage audits or inspections • Training Completion of recognised road safety audit course • Maintenance of experience three road safety audits or inspections within two years prior, including at least one design and one construction/post-construction • or Completion of an approved refresher audit course in the two years prior Criteria for Audit Team Leader
- 12. • successfully completed a recognised audit training course, of at least two days duration • at least five years experience in a relevant road design, road construction or traffic engineering field (more complicated projects require more experience) • undertaken at least five formal road safety audits, including at least three at design stages • kept their professional experience current by undertaking at least one audit per year Existing requirements: Senior Auditor
- 13. • Design Stages –Feasibility –Preliminary Design –Detailed Design • Post-Construction Stages –Pre-opening –Post-opening Road Safety Audit Stages
- 14. • Traffic Control at Worksites • Road-related Areas –Land Use Developments –Public Transport Infrastructure –Mine Site Operations –Private Roads Other Applications
- 15. Mine Site
- 16. • Road Safety Inspection- previously of Existing Roads – address safety concerns before crashes occur – complement a program of crash blackspot treatment – identify road safety issues that may develop due to changes in the road environment • Road Safety Check- an informal Audit – - eg by one auditor, for small projects Other Road Safety Assessments
- 17. Some things are obvious
- 18. • Benefits of Audits – Safety – Financial – Quality Assurance • The Audit Process for Project Managers – Provision for Recommendations – Responding to the Audit Report – Corrective Action Report (CAR) • Legal Issues Part II-Guidance for Project Managers or Sponsors
- 19. • The Process – Writing the Report • Audit Elements – Older Road Users – Pedestrians – Disability – Cyclists – Motorcyclists – Auditing for Safe Speeds Part III- Guidance for the Audit Team
- 20. Prompt List Sign Off extract We have examined the plans and documents listed in this report and have inspected the subject site under day and night conditions, taking into consideration following road safety issue categories: □ Access points □ Landscaping □ Auxiliary lanes □ Roadside environment □ Tunnel and bridge structures □ Roadside hazards □ Road surface □ Safety barriers □ Drainage □ Speed zoning □ Signing and delineation □ Traffic calming treatments □ Intersections □ Likely road user behaviour
- 21. • Structure-3 Parts, different Parts for Clients and Auditors • Professional Experience for Leader increased from 5 to 7 yrs • Experience Field now includes crash investigation and not construction • Audit Experience needs to cover both Design and Post- construction • Mines and Public Transport Infrastructure now included • RS Inspections and Checks rather than Existing Road Audits • More emphasis on Prompt Lists, less on Check Lists • Corrective Action Report key part of Response Summary-what’s changed
- 22. • International guidelines…? • Mandatory auditing…? • National training curriculum…? • Accreditation/certification – National – International Future for Road Safety Audit
- 23. Noel O’Callaghan Principal Engineer Safe Systems Engineering ARRB Group Adelaide Office p: 8235 3305 e: noel.ocallaghan@arrb.com.au Thank You
Editor's Notes
- Thank you for coming this session and for staying to hear this presentation – Keeping Road Safety Audits Relevant: A Review of the Austroads Guide to Road Safety Part 6 – Road Safety Audit. Before I start the presentation, I would just like to acknowledge that diversity of views and practice that exists around road safety auditing. There are a great many people – engineers, behaviourists, educators, planners, driving trainers, police etc. – who contribute to safety on our roads in a variety of ways. Of those who seek to make road transport safer, it is perhaps road safety auditing that is unique in its effort to bring together the views, experience and preferences of the considered professional to single-mindedly examine the safety performance of road infrastructure, and to do so in such a way that they take into account the diversity of the skill, experience, attitude and compliance of road users and all of this before the road infrastructure exists. This truly requires a high degree of skill and it must be acknowledged that a Guide alone cannot impart that skill, but it can and should help to define the process that applies and it should give the necessary guidance to would be road safety auditors.
- So with that in mind, the presentation this afternoon will briefly discuss the findings and key outcomes of an Austroads project, ST1774, which sought to review the practice of road safety auditing as it applies in Australian and New Zealand jurisdictions. I will firstly touch on the development of road safety auditing and on the Austroads Guide to road safety audit and who and what Austroads is. I will outline what the project brief to ARRB was – importantly what the objective of the review was, why Austroads wanted to undertake the review and what the expected deliverable was to be. This is important as it provides context. It is fair to ask ‘Is there a need for a review?’ ‘What is the purpose of the change?’ After all, road safety audits have been undertaken in Australia and New Zealand at least since 1994, so what is there that could be improved? Well that is about the future of road safety audits and how road infrastructure managers should improve road safety. It is also about what has been learned since 1994, what is happening overseas to improve the safety of road infrastructure, how other countries are doing this and how the road safety audit is contributing?
- First-up, a brief history of the road safety audit. It is generally acknowledged that the road safety audit was a process developed in the UK during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. However, research indicates that a process of safety checks was implemented by rail engineers in the 1830s. The road safety audit as we know it today certainly evolved out of the UK collision investigation experience where investigators sought to apply lessons learned through past errors in design to ensure that future road infrastructure designers do not incorporate the same mistakes in the new designs. In Australia and New Zealand, the first Austroads guide to road safety audit was published in 1994, with an update to that guide published in 2002. These were stand alone practitioner guide documents and were held in high regard around the world as leading the formalisation of the road safety audit as an important process to improving road safety. In 2009, Austroads incorporated road safety audit practice into the Guide to Road Safety as Part 6 Road Safety Audit. This Guide to Road Safety introduced practitioners to the Safe System approach to road safety and in Part 6 there was some amendment to update the second edition, which included guidance about road safety auditing of traffic control at road road work sites. As road safety audit gained traction, individual jurisdictions developed their own policy and guidelines on how they expect road safety audits to be undertaken and reported. While the Austroads guide documents have been the common reference, there are differences to how jurisdictions conduct and report road safety audit. As mentioned at the start of the presentation, a guide document can only go so far to imparting the skills necessary to develop road safety auditors. Austroads is not a training organisation, it develops practitioner material but leaves the development of training courses to others. The NSW IPWEA was first to develop a formal road safety audit training course in the 1990’s, and this has been the basis to road safety audit training in a number of jurisdictions. However, like policy and guidelines, there is no single format or common training and auditor certification process applied in Australia and New Zealand and this has led to some diversity in approach.
- For projects under the Safety Program, the project objectives are set by the Road Safety Task Force, which is comprised of the heads of the road safety agencies in each jurisdiction. For ST1774, the contract note established the purpose, objectives, deliverables and timeframe for the project. Each project has a project manager – who represents Austroads – and a project leader – who represents ARRB Group. Additionally, to ensure a broad consideration and encourage national consistency, Austroads projects typically involve a project working group, which has representation from each Australian and New Zealand jurisdiction. For ST1774, the project manager was the NSW Centre for Road Safety, and I was the project leader. The project working group has representation from New Zealand, NSW, Queensland, South Australia Victoria and Western Australia. The original contract note for ST1774 identified a two-year timeframe for the review and development of a new Guide to Road Safety – Part 6 Road Safety Audit, with three primary objectives: Alignment of current road safety audit processes and practice with a Safe System approach to road safety. Harmonisation of road safety audit processes across Australia and New Zealand jurisdictions. Production of a clear, concise and easy to use guide for practitioners. It is with this scope that ARRB sets about to deliver an Austroads project.
- For the ST1774 review of Part 6, the initial challenge was how to incorporate the Safe System principles into the long-established process, policy and guidelines that is road safety audit. The question was put to the project working group and with input from them, the project scope was amended to include not just a review of Part 6, but also how road safety audit training is structured and delivered and how road safety auditors are established and certified. Australia and New Zealand are relatively good performing road safety nations, however, the experience overseas perhaps suggests that more can be done with regard to road infrastructure, especially at the design stages.
- It was established early that a review of Part 6 and of the training and certification of road safety auditors needed to include the views and experiences of industry – the practitioners and training providers – in addition to government agencies. Road safety auditors from consulting practitioners, local government and road agencies were canvassed for their views on all things road safety audit. Training providers, including IPWEA and Universities in Queensland and South Australia were invited to provide input to the current structure, format and delivery of their road safety audit training and where they though training needed to go to improve the competency and skills of participants. Key areas of inquiry were established to assist feedback to focus on areas that Austroads was able to influence and included the range of areas listed here.
- For the best part of 20 years, the Austroads Guide to Road Safety Part 6 Road Safety Audit has been held up internationally as an excellent practitioner document. As an early adopter of road safety audit, Austroads and its member agencies have had their Guide referenced the world over by other countries taking-up the practice and seeking to develop their own policy and practice in this area. However, in recent years, work in other countries has, to a certain degree, overtaken the promoter of ‘best practice’ in road safety audit. At a fundamental level road safety remains the same as it was when road safety audits were first introduced. However, there have been numerous developments in research and practice to assist better delivery of road safety objectives. The 2015 review of the UK road safety audit guide made a number of changes that are similarly reflected in the draft Austroads Guide. The European Union has established criteria for the experience and competency of road safety auditors and a process that restricts who can undertake audits on European highways. There is as yet no international guideline on road safety audit, and just one professional association of road safety auditors – SoRSA which is based in the UK. However, this too is changing. Just two weeks ago The International Road Federation’s AFB20(2) Roadside Safety Design Subcommittee met in Chicago and discussed Global Qualifications for Certification of Road Safety Audit Team Leaders – I note there was no Australian or New Zealand representation of road safety auditors and no input based on our extensive experience in this space. It is important, going into the future, that Australia and New Zealand have a road safety audit guide that is relevant to current road safety thoughts and practice. Consultation locally has highlighted the need for change. Changes internationally have assisted to highlight where local practice can be improved, and a number of these have been incorporated into the draft Austroads Guide. I encourage everyone to consider how road safety auditing in Australia and New Zealand can be kept relevant and to keep an eye out for the new, fourth edition, of the Austroads Guide to Road Safety – Part 6 Road Safety Audit.