Developing a roadside safety organisational robustness assessment tool - The CEDR project PROGReSS experience

The Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) funded PROGReSS (Provision of Guidelines for Road Side Safety) project combines the results of a status quo review of available European roadside safety standards and guidelines, with the experiences of National Road Authorities in applying these in the design, operation and maintenance phases of European roads with speed limits higher than 70km/h. PROGReSS brings together state of the art (theoretical) requirements (as defined by current national and international standards regulating the safe design and operation of roadsides along higher order European roads) with the practice of applying these requirements and dealing with the difficulties of making compromises and design concessions driven by the reality of project constraints. PROGReSS has developed methodologies and tools to assess and evaluate roadside design and management. The project makes recommendations to improve both the quality and use of roadside safety design, operations and maintenance standards and guidelines, increasing the effectiveness of road infrastructure safety management. The involvement of road authorities and practitioners from the outset of the project was vital and ensured that these parties were involved in not only isolating problems regarding current practice but also in the development of widely acceptable solutions. This project has been funded by the road authorities of the Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, Slovenia, Belgium-Flanders and Sweden. Participation in the project has also come from representatives from Germany and Portugal. This paper has been prepared in support of the Workshop on roadside safety to be held at the 2020 ISHGD in Amsterdam.