The European directive 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety management involves the implementation of procedures relating to road safety impact assessments, road safety audits, the management of road network safety and safety inspections by the member states. This Directive was implemented into Flemish legislation by the decree of June 17, 2011 (published in the Belgian Official Journal on July 4, 2011) and the consecutive Decision of the Flemish Government of Feb, 3 2012 on the execution (published in the Belgian Official Journal on April 19, 2012). This legislation imposes, among others, a classification of road segments with a high number of accidents and a classification of the road safety of the road network. As the first classification is targeted at the number of crashes, the second is targeted at the potential to improve road safety. The application area of both the EU-directive and the Flemish Decree is limited to those road segments that make up the trans-European road network (TEN-T), which in Flanders largely resembles the motorway network. In this report a method is described and applied to screen the TEN-T road network in the Flanders region. The goal of this screening is the selection of a relatively small group of road segments that can be subjected afterwards to an in-depth investigation that will allow proposing appropriate measures. The network screening as such is therefore not an ultimate goal, but merely the first step to improve the road safety on dangerous locations. (Author/publisher)
Abstract