This report contains the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research contribution to a working group of the Netherlands Centre for Research and Contract Standardization in Civil and Traffic Engineering (CROW). The objective of this contribution was to provide content intended to support the formulation of design requirements and criteria for `sustainably safe' roads and streets inside built-up areas. Particular attention was paid to the quantitative and qualitative relationships between traffic engineering design and road safety. Points of departure were made up of the functional and operational requirements for `sustainably safe' roads and road networks, published by CROW in 1997. The relevance for road safety on roads and streets inside built-up areas was examined for each requirement. Certain requirements still have to be added to the CROW requirements. The requirements that are demonstrably important for road safety concern: the network structure and the extent of residential and commercial areas, the number of property accesses per unit of road length, crossing facilities on the road surfaces, whether or not cyclists travel on the carriageway, and the presence of speed inhibitors on road surfaces and on or near intersections. These safety requirements were interpreted into design criteria. Although for certain requirements no research findings were found to demonstrate their relevance to safety, further research addressing these requirements should be able to demonstrate this relevance. In particular, these requirements involve facilities located along distributor roads.
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