Just four types of collision account for about 80% of fatal crashes on inter-urban roads across Europe. The design and standard of these roads determines the extent to which the collisions occur and severity of resultant injuries. Mass action programmes provide the opportunity for systematic large-scale upgrading of sections of the road network with the widespread application of measures known to reduce injury. Investment priorities can be determined by analysing how the four collision types contribute to risk of severe injury on road sections of different types, and by assessing the number of severe collisions that could be reduced and thus the investment justified in upgrading. The biggest reductions in risk on British non-motorway inter-urban major roads will come from reducing collisions at junctions; risk can also be greatly reduced on some roads by using a median to divide single carriageway roads. The biggest changes in severe injury collision numbers can be obtained from improving those poor-quality dual carriageways that have many at-grade accesses to a grade-separated or improved merge design. There are likely to be particularly good investment returns in providing high-quality merge junctions on dual carriageways and junction improvements and median treatment on single carriageways. (Author/publisher)
Abstract