This paper reports on the Austroads Road Safety Audit Project, and includes a brief review of road safety audit in Australasia, the USA, the UK and Europe. Austroads, the Australian national association of road transport and traffic authorities, established a Working Party in mid-1992 to: (1) examine the benefits and costs of a national approach to safety audit; and (2) prepare a set of national guidelines on road safety audit. After examining audit processes in each Australian State and in the UK and New Zealand, the Working Party concluded that road safety audit has very real benefits for Australian road users. Austroads completed its national road safety audit guidelines in 1994; they are providing a focus for highway authorities around Australia and New Zealand. The Austroads project concluded that a road safety audit has the following five logical stages: (1) feasibility; (2) draft design; (3) detailed design; (4) pre-opening; and (5) the audit of existing roads. The costs of road safety audit include: (1) audit costs; (2) redesign costs where required; and (3) any increased project cost. The benefits range from specific benefits at a site to broader benefits covering the wider issues of road safety engineering.
Samenvatting