PROGReSS (Provision of Guidelines for Road Side Safety) is a project funded within the CEDR 2016 Safety Call, in which the results of a status quo review of available EU roadside safety standards and guidelines are combined with the experiences from National Road Authorities in applying these in the design, operation and maintenance phases of EU high speed roads (speed limits higher than 70 km/h). A special emphasis is put on the six funding countries (Belgium-Flanders, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, and United Kingdom), plus Germany and Portugal which are included to increase the geographic representation of the results. The purpose of this report is to bring together the most relevant results of all the foregoing Work Packages and document this in a compressed summary report. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the development of road safety in Europe and the role Run-off-Road crashes play. In addition, guidance on how to provide safe roadsides is given by mentioning selected relevant projects. Furthermore, the structure of the risk model is explained and options are discussed. Chapter 3 points out the main results of the literature research which had led to a list of 150 quantified roadside safety measures. Another aspect mentioned in this chapter is the comparison of guidelines of the six countries funding this project plus Portugal and Germany. Within Chapter 4, the main aspects concerning the current practice in safe roadside design as well as typical problems associated with applying these guidelines and standards are mentioned. Furthermore, common problems concerning the provision of safe roadsides are stated. Based on input given by national and regional Road Authorities as well as by consultants and practitioners various issues, problems and shortcomings experienced are reported in Chapter 5 in a structured way leading to recommendations for further developments. Chapter 6 introduces the 'Roadside Safety Organisational Robustness Fault Tree' aimed to offer guidance on how to detect the most relevant elements to be improved in order to increase traffic safety by means of design and management of safe roadsides along higher order rural roads. How this fault tree is transformed into an EXCEL-Tool and how this tool was tested are topics of Chapter 7. Chapter 8 outlines the main results of PROGReSS and provides the conclusions and recommendations. More detailed reports of the various work packages are available on the project website www.cedrprogress.eu and later on the CEDR website (at https://cedr.eu/). A further goal of this report is to propose an implementation plan specifically for CEDR in which an outline will be provided with which to improve compliance with roadside design and management standards and guidelines. One further intention of this project was to describe relevant cross-section design features and roadside elements, their positive and negative aspects and to provide guidance to their application and maintenance requirements, including aspects such as cross-section design features (e.g., curbs, berms, and edging), facilities for other modes (e.g., cycle and/or footpaths); utilities and signage and verge and related elements (clear zones, barriers, drainage ditches, utility poles, signage, snow, storage areas and maintenance areas). However, as the project developed it became quite apparent that the nature of the support tool was more directed at the management processes relating to roadside safety as opposed to the initially intended design support tool. Consequently and in consultation with the PEB, it was decided not to pursue or cover these aspects. (Author/publisher)
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