One of the strongest social costs that Italy pays in terms of mobility arises from the road accidents. In Italy, it has been estimated that road accident costs are about 2% of the GNP, that is an annual cost of about 30,000 millions of EURO. Italy with other countries of the European Union agrees to the target of European Community program "European Transport Policy for 2010: time to decide" for the reduction within 2010 of 50% of road fatalities. One important step to gain this goal is the revision of the national guidelines for highway design and management. The paper, after a general description of the existing Italian road network and of the most important new projects, presents an overview of the National Road Safety Plan and the main concept of the new highway and streets geometric standards. At the end of 2001 the new highway geometric design policy was adopted. The new policy reviews the previous guidelines that date back to 1980 for rural roads and to 1978 for urban roads. The new guidelines are based on a road network classification in road functional classes for both rural and urban areas. For each road class, different cross section schemes and horizontal and vertical alignment constraints are associated. Large flexibility is permitted to the design professional with a wide range of minimum and maximum design speed values. Special emphasis to the alignment and speed consistency is given for a sound adaptation of the road geometry with the driver behavior. Also a new guideline for the design of intersections is ready and it will be published in a short time. Different typologies of at grade intersection and of intersection with grade separation are referred to the functional classification of the different highways that join or cross at the intersection. With respect to the management of existing roads an important role is played by the new guideline for Road Cadastre that defines standards for acquisition and recording of all the infrastructural data.
Samenvatting