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Road Safety Audits in the Netherlands

The Dutch guidelines for Road Safety Audits (RSAs) were published late in the summer of 2001. This was followed in the autumn by the first two-day training course in conducting RSAs. These events mark the end of a long-term development process that involved the efforts of SWOV, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and various road authorities. Although the wide-scaled use of this RSA instrument is by no means guaranteed, it is hoped that market forces will contribute to its application.

A Road Safety Audit (RSA) is an official procedure in which the accident potential and the safety performance of road schemes are assessed by independent auditors. An RSA is supposed to be conducted during the planning and design stages of both new road schemes and schemes for improving and rehabilitating existing roads. This means that an RSA is conducted before a scheme is actually implemented and before a safety problem is disclosed in the form of accidents.

The decision to introduce RSAs in the Netherlands was made late in 1997 by the Ministry of Transport and various road authorities within the framework of the Dutch policy known as Sustainable Safety. The main objective of the sustainable safety policy is to create a traffic environment in which serious accidents are virtually eliminated. Obviously, the use of RSAs is very much in keeping with the preventive character of sustainable safety.

The Dutch RSA procedures are largely based on procedures previously developed by other countries, specifically the UK, Australia and Denmark. The suitability of the provisional RSA procedures for Dutch conditions was assessed during a trial period (SWOV-rapport D-2000-07. It was during this period that around 15 RSAs were conducted as pilot studies by different road authorities in which road schemes for different lengths of road sections were conducted during various stages of their planning and design.

Discussions held within the RSA development group as well as knowledge obtained during the trial period showed that an RSA was not automatically accepted as a useful instrument. Firstly, there were rather practical arguments against the use of the RSA such as its cost, the time delay involved and the administrative burden of yet another procedure. And then there were arguments referring to more fundamental questions. Was there evidence to prove the effectiveness of conducting RSAs? Was it correct to consider road safety separately from aspects such as the environment and land use? What added advantages would there be to conducting an RSA when complicated or large-scaled planning and design projects had already been outsourced to other professional agencies? All in all, it proved somewhat complicated to provide arguments intended to convince people of the value of conducting RSAs. Nevertheless, the scepticism of those who had been directly involved in a pilot study were largely convinced of its value after having gone through the RSA procedures and having seen the results.

Considering these issues, the current Dutch RSA procedure is defined as flexibly as possible and is applied on a voluntary basis. It is up to the road authority in question to decide whether or not to conduct an RSA, and if so, whether or not to incorporate the results into the various planning and design stages. In order to conduct an RSA, the following conditions will have to be met: a) the request for an RSA must be submitted in writing, b) the audit will have to be conducted by an experienced traffic engineer who has successfully completed a two-day RSA training course, c) the findings of the audit must be submitted in the form of a written report and, last but not least, d) the organisation requesting the RSA will have to respond to the audit report, this written response stating which findings will be incorporated when adapting initial design and giving grounds for not incorporating other findings. In conducting the audits, it would be advisable to have two independent auditors carrying out an RSA during each of the five following stages: feasibility phase, preliminary phase, detailed design phase, before opening or reopening, and after opening or reopening. Checklists are available for each of these stages, but it is also possible to perform an RSA during only one or two stages and/or to have only one auditor involved.

Hopefully, the flexibility offered in conducting an RSA will make the instrument more attractive. It is also hoped that supply and demand will now be effective in promoting its use. Whether or not the RSA has a chance of becoming an integrated part of the planning and design process in the Netherlands should become evident over the next few years.

SWOV Research Activities 18 - November 2001

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