The role of infrastructure in road safety

Road infrastructure plays a crucial role in the development of safer roads. Well-designed and well-maintained roads can help avoid and reduce road traffic accidents. 


Below we have highlighted two recent initiatives from our members who are leading the way on improving road infrastructure.  We hope they inspire you and other stakeholders in road safety. 


Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) 


Proactive road safety inspections can prevent crashes. However, analysis of previous inspections revealed that experts often disagree in the evaluation of risks, and that their knowledge is often too much based on historical patterns of collision data. Therefore, TII has developed a new standard that sets out the processes around road safety inspections. The Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive is a new tool based on the analysis of the ratios of primary collision types (PCT) and has a focus on the proportion between the number of reported injury collision to non-injury collision for the same PCT.
The Directive requires regular (no less than every five years) proactive inspections on the road network. This will give the possibility to act before the crash occurs and save lives.


m/d/r/k trusted adviser group sp z o.o 


What if a crash happens in a tunnel? And what if a transport of dangerous goods is involved in this accident? To minimize the number of crashes in tunnels and to limit the effects of these emergencies, m/d/r/k has developed a catalogue that collects all technical, organisational and legal measures that can be used by designers, local communities and researchers. All potential measures were analysed on their impact on both the road users and on the traffic. So far, Poland advised this catalogue for the design and construction of 4 tunnels.


These examples are only two out of hundreds of infrastructure projects around Europe. Check out all the good practices from our members here to learn what others are doing when it comes to infrastructure or road safety in general. And if you have a good practice you’d like to share   and you are not yet a member of our Charter, then sign your commitment and join the Charter today!