There are several instruments that road authorities can (commission to) use to test the safety of their road network and their roads. This provides an overview of possible bottlenecks in the safety and (consequently) of the targets for action.
Planning and designing tests
The safety of a new road or a far-reaching redesign of a road can be tested in advance by carrying out a road safety audit in various phases of the planning and of the design (see also archived SWOV Fact sheet The Road Safety Audit and Road Safety Inspection).
Testing existing roads
Various tests can be used to test the safety of existing road infrastructure. The table below presents an overview. The first two instruments focus on the main road network only. The other instruments (also) address the underlying road network; some of the tests (DV-meter, VSGS) focus on the design and layout of roads and others (route test, cores method) mainly focus on the road network. ProMeV combines elements of different instruments.
| Instrument | Omschrijving |
| Road Protection Score | The Road Protection Score (RPS) has been developed within the international partnership EuroRAP and investigates safety features of the main road network in rural areas. On this basis, each road gets a star-score that indicates the quality of the road regarding road safety: the higher the quality, the more stars, with a maximum of five. |
| VIND | In addition to the RPS Rijkswaterstaat is developing the road safety indicator VIND, a similar tool for the main road network (national roads) [16]. The RPS is primarily intended to inform road users about the safety level; VIND is mainly intended to provide handles for location-specific measures. |
| DV-meter | De Sustainable Safety measuring tool DV-meter indicates the extent to which road sections and intersections have the agreed Sustainable Safety characteristics. If the entire road section or intersection has all the required features it gets a score of 100%; If half of the required features is present it gets a score of 50% et cetera. |
| VSGS-method | The method Safe Speeds, Credible Limits (VSGS) tests the extent to which roads do have a safe speed and a credible speed limit. The VSGS method first determines the safe speed based on possible conflicts (frontal conflicts, lateral conflicts, conflicts between cars and cyclists/pedestrians) and then, based on the characteristics of road and environment, the credibility of the proposed limit. The method also looks at the use of enforcement and public service advertising. |
| Route test | The route key has as a starting point that the largest possible distance must be travelled on roads of the highest possible Sustainable Safety road category. The desired route diagram shows a route that has all the road categories in the desired order and in the correct length ratios. The deviation of a chosen route relative to the desired route diagram, determines the extent of assumed unsafety. |
| Cores method | The cores method investigates whether the road network is structured in a logical fashion. The starting point is that locations with many residents and/or activities are linked with each other by roads of a higher order than locations with fewer inhabitants and/or activities. The method first creates a list of cores, subdivided into a number of classes. Then it identifies connections (road categories) are theoretically needed between these cores and compares this to the actual connections. |
| ProMeV (Light) | ProMeV, proactively measuring road safety, uses a combination of four of the methods described above: the cores method, the route test, the VSGS method and the DV meters. ProMeV offers the possibility to take into account the presence of for instance catering, schools and other locations that can affect traffic behaviour and traffic flows. In addition the ProMev Light tool was developed which may be a little less accurate but gives a quicker and simpler indication of the safety. |
Table 2. Overview of instruments to test the safety of road infrastructure. Based on: Korving et al., 2016 [17].
Testing the safety of bicycle infrastructure
The tool CycleRAP is being developed specifically for the bicycle infrastructure[18] [19]. At present he tool has three safety indicators:
- The general quality of the bicycle infrastructure (characteristics such as width of bicycle facility, holes/bumps in surface or verge, high curb adjoining bicycle facility).
- The presence of obstacles (characteristics such as bollards or traffic islands on the bicycle facility).
- General length-height profile (features such as sharp bend, narrowing, slope, marking, lighting).
In Nederland is de herkenbaarheid van wegen vooral vormgegeven met markeringen die per wegcategorie verschillen. CROW heeft richtlijnen opgesteld over de essentiële herkenbaarheidskenmerken van weginfrastructuur en deze zijn inmiddels opgenomen in het Handboek wegontwerp [21]. Tabel 1 laat de toepassing van de markeringen zien. Deze zijn op de meeste wegen doorgevoerd.
Het herkenbaar maken van wegen zorgt ervoor dat weggebruikers steeds weten op wat voor soort weg ze rijden, wie ze daar tegen kunnen komen (voorspelbaarheid) en hoe ze zich moeten gedragen. Voor de herkenbaarheid van wegen is het niet alleen van belang dat er onderscheid is tussen wegcategorieën, maar ook dat er uniformiteit is binnen wegcategorieën [22].
Voorlichting kan de kennis over de betekenis van belijning wel verbeteren, maar in de praktijk blijkt het rijgedrag vooral intuïtief opgeroepen te worden door het wegontwerp [23] [24]. Zie voor meer informatie verder de gearchiveerde SWOV-factsheet Herkenbare vormgeving van wegen.
Een herkenbare weginrichting zorgt ervoor dat weggebruikers weten hoe ze zich moeten gedragen, maar dit wil nog niet zeggen dat weggebruikers dat daadwerkelijk doen. Hiertoe is het belangrijk dat ook het juiste gedrag wordt uitgelokt of afgedwongen, bijvoorbeeld door een geloofwaardige snelheidslimiet, snelheidsremmende maatregelen of het fysiek onmogelijk maken van inhalen. Voor meer informatie over een geloofwaardige snelheidslimiet zie bijvoorbeeld [25] en de SWOV-factsheet Snelheid en snelheidsmanagement.
Tabel 1. Uitwerking van essentiële herkenbaarheidskenmerken [21]. Ieder wegtype heeft een eigen zone-aanduiding; de markering is uitgewerkt per wegtype en kan zowel binnen, als buiten de bebouwde kom worden toegepast. De uitwerking van fysieke rijrichtingscheiding voor stroomwegen is zowel op regionale (SW100) als nationale stroomwegen van toepassing (SW130).Voor regionale stroomwegen kan volgens de richtlijn ook voor een groene middenmarkering worden gekozen.
