Road Safety Audit: What, Why, and How?

What is a Road Safety Audit?

A road safety audit (RSA) is a formal, independent examination of roads, intersections, or highway schemes. It can apply to both existing and planned road projects and is completed by a multidisciplinary team of experts, including engineers and urban planners. The primary goal of a road safety audit is to identify potential safety issues and recommend improvements by proactively assessing design, operation, maintenance, and community feedback.

Benefits

Poor road safety is a leading cause of accidents worldwide. The United Nations reports that nearly 1.35 million people die each year due to road crashes, while up to 50 million more sustain non-fatal injuries. Many are often left with long-term disabilities after.

Conducting road safety audits help protect all road users, especially vulnerable groups, such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists.

Routine road safety audits present several benefits such as:

• Designing roads and other thoroughfares that reduce potential accidents

• Reducing project costs through early identification and prevention of safety issues

• Raising awareness of safe design practices

• Incorporating multimodal safety considerations throughout design and construction

• Supporting stronger infrastructure and road efficiency

How to Prepare for a Road Safety Audit

Before conducting a road safety audit, it’s important to know the steps involved before, during, and after the audit. Additionally, you should gather the right people and assemble a team capable of completing this kind of assessment effectively.

Here are some tips on what to prepare and do when conducting road safety audits:

1. Determine the objective

A clear objective helps build the audit team and guide the plan of action for the road safety audit. Part of defining the objective includes determining if the audit is for a new project or for an existing intersection where accidents have been reported. This information will affect how the audit will go.

2. Build a team

Depending on the objective, team members may have different fields of expertise. A typical road safety auditing team may include road safety specialists, highway engineers, traffic operations specialists, and a local contact person (e.g., local police officer).

Assembling a multidisciplinary team ensures a range of perspectives that can strengthen future road safety design and support compliance with applicable standards. After building the team and before conducting the audit, members should meet and discuss how best to proceed with the road safety audit.

3. Conduct the audit

The audit team will conduct the audit in different conditions and times of day to identify all apparent and potential road safety concerns. Team members will collect photos, observations, and data on possible road risks and contributing factors to help in developing effective mitigation measures.

4. Prepare the audit report

After the audit, the team will organize and analyze all collected data. They will collate their findings and recommendations into the road safety audit report, which is then submitted as a single document to the project head or requesting party.

Road Safety Audit Process

The process of carrying out a road safety audit follows several steps and here is a quick guide to help you get started:

Step 1: Identify the project

A project manager should evaluate the impact of each road project on the road network and maintain a record of how projects are selected for auditing. If an RSA is required, the client organization’s project manager should specify the following conditions in their safety audit brief:

• Safety audit scope

• The timeframe for completing the audit

• The requirements for a road safety audit team

• The audit’s report format

• Expectations for decision tracking forms

Step 2: Select the road safety audit team

Project managers and safety engineers should collaborate to select a road safety audit team appropriate for the road project being audited. Typically, the team of road safety auditors are external to the design organization to ensure impartiality and objectivity.

Step 3: Conduct pre-audit briefing

The project manager prepares an audit brief for the road safety auditors, including all relevant project information and parameters identified in Step 1. The brief should also include the recommended coverage of the audit and allow auditors to ask for additional information.

Step 4: Study and review drawings

Before visiting the site, the road safety auditors must review design drawings and other provided information for all stages of the RSA. This review is essential to understand how road users could interpret the planned project and possible safety issues. Additional data must accompany the designs to help measure the project’s safety against current practices.

Step 5: Visit the site

The road safety auditors must conduct a risk assessment before visiting the site. During the visit, they should verify the issues identified earlier and gather photographic or video evidence to support the audit report and debriefing.

All team members must wear the necessary Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) during the site inspection. Additionally, observations during peak hours, off-peak times, and nighttime are often required to understand how traffic behaves under different conditions and to identify any visibility issues.

Step 6: Debrief on the road safety audit

Using the information from Step 4 and the site visit, the audit team should conclude their findings and identify ways to improve safety. They can present their data at the debrief meeting so that safety engineers can ask questions and request more information about the audit’s findings, while the design team can share their actions and recommendations.

Step 7: Create a report

The audit team leader is responsible for the content of the audit report. Reports should be concise with clear numbered issues and written with the support of the audit team. It may be necessary to include photos or illustrations to support each case.

In addition, standards, guidance, and reports should be listed where appropriate. The report must adhere to the timeframe defined in the RSA brief. The audit report should be sent to the Project Manager, accompanied by a letter listing any road safety issues not covered in Step 1 of the project.

Step 8: Complete the decision tracking form

After the audit report is submitted to the client, they will ask the design team to evaluate each issue and recommendation in a Decision Tracking Form. After consulting with the design team, the project manager has approved or denied the safety issue. The Decision Tracking Form should consider factors such as:

• Is the defined issue within the project scope as identified in Step 1?

• Do the road safety audit report recommendations mitigate the safety issue, reducing its probability of occurrence and severity?

• Will the recommendation result in other non-safety issues, such as mobility or the environment?

• What is the cost of implementing the recommendation? Is there a more cost-effective alternative?

The Project Manager’s proposed actions outlined in the report should also be implemented according to the specifications of the Decision Tracking Form and established timeline.

Step 9: Conclude the audit

If any issues outlined in the Decision Tracking Form warrant further consideration, the client should prepare an exception report for review by the design team and stakeholders.

The design team and stakeholders will meet to agree on the changes to the draft exceptions report before releasing the final exceptions report to the audit team and the client. The exception reports, decision tracking forms, and RSA Reports are stored as evidence of the road safety audit process.