The vital role played by road infrastructure design in determining road safety outcomes is increasingly being recognised. Accident black spot programs have been implemented in many countries of the world, in some for morethan three decades. In Victoria, Australia, there has been a major increase in investment in black spot programs, the most recent involving an expenditure of $240M (AUD) over the four-year period from 2001/02-2004/05. This paper presents the results of a comprehensive evaluation of this four-year program on key indicators of safety, including percent reduction in casualty crashes and cost-effectiveness. The evaluation examined the effectiveness of the program overall for broad categories of treatment that targeted off-path, intersection or pedestrian crashes, and for individual types of treatment. Insights gained from the evaluation are presented to assist with enhancing future investment strategies for safe road infrastructure. Treatment types that are compatible with ambitious road safety philosophies such as Sweden's Vision Zero, The Netherlands's Sustainable Safety and Australia's recent derivative, the Safe System, are also discussed. For thecovering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Abstract