The concept of “Whitespot” and “Whiteroads” were first introduced in 2000 by the Spanish Road Association and Mapfre Foundation. The philosophy of WhiteRoads aims to identify the characteristics of the road sections where there were no accidents during a certain period of time; under these circumstances, these road sections can be considered as the perfect field for obtaining recommendations to the design and operation of safer roads. In the definition of white spot there are two unknowns variables: space and time. For the resolution of these two questions is necessary handle a wide range of statistics and complementary information about the accident on the road network. Consequently the definition of white spot is not universal and it needs to be adapted to particular state of different regions of the EU context. For the determination of the space and time variables in TETN?T, the consortium has analysed a total of 84,700 km and 248,069 accidents. During more the 3 years, the following process has been conducted for the analysis and elaboration of the definition of European White Spot ? EUWS. Starting from the assumption that more useful information can be obtained analysing road sections with low road accident frequency, the project aims at identifying the best road sections in Europe and comparing them to the adjacent stretches characterised by a higher volume of accidents. The objective of this report is to analyse the common characteristics to all road sections that fit into the definition of European Union White Spot, through a field work and an office work. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the geometric characteristics, design, traffic, etc. of the white spots identified in Lithuania, France, Belgium, Poland, Spain, Romania and Baltic countries. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting