Single-Vehicle-Run-Off-the-Road (SVROR) crashes on rural highways in The Netherlands are a serious cause of fatality and severe injury accounting for over 30% of total road crash deaths. Roadside safety countermeasures therefore are vital in mitigating this situation. This study has looked at two countermeasures: hard shoulders and roadside barriers with an aim of determining their cost effectiveness using the Benefit Cost Analysis technique. Data accessed from and through SWOV (Institute for Road Safety Research - Leidschendam) for rural highways in Friesland and Limburg provinces in the north and south of The Netherlands respectively was analysed to obtain benefit-cost ratios pertaining to the two countermeasures. The results indicate that for shoulder paving, considering a 6-metre obstacle free shoulder with 2 meters paved being added onto an existing road the Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) is 0.95:1 while for roadside barriers (using guardrails) the BCR is 3:1. In both cases a 5% discount factor was taken over a 15-year period for AADTs between 2,000 and 8,500 and speed limits of 80 ato 100 kph. The study shows that while both measures are associated with reduction in frequency of SVROR crashes provision of obstacle free shoulders hard in this respect is not cost effective while the use of guardrails is an attractive countermeasure. (Author/publisher)
Abstract