A Procedure to Improve Safety Inspections Effectiveness and Reliability on Rural Two–Lane Highways
Keywords:
road safety, inspections, ranking criteria, checklists, measures of agreement, reliabilityAbstract
Road Safety Inspections (RSI) are recognised as an effective tool for identifying safety issues. However, due to the subjective nature of the process, they may give rise to disagreements which limit their effectiveness. In the framework of the IASP research program sponsored by European Commission, which is focused on rural two-lane highways, a RSI procedure aimed at improving the effectiveness and the reliability of the methodology has been defined. For this purpose, the research has been pinpointed on the inspection framework, on the inspectors and client roles and, with special emphasis, on the methodologies used for identifying and ranking the safety problems. In order to test the reliability of the methodology, the agreement of the results of the safety issues ranks produced by different inspectors has been addressed. Specifically, the statistic kappa has been used. Results show that there is a statistically significant level of agreement among inspectors for the majority of safety issues. The reliability of the procedure is satisfactory, especially if it is considered that the identification of the safety issues is a very complex task based on human evaluations and expertise not supported by instrumental measures.References
Hauer, E.; Allery, B. K.; Kononov, J.; Griffith, M. S. How Best to Rank Sites with Promise. Transportation Research Record 1897, TRB, Washington DC, 2004, p. 48–54.
Hauer, E.; Harwood, D.w.; Council, F.m.; Griffith, M. S. Estimating Safety by the Empirical Bayes Method: A Tutorial. Transportation Research Record 1784, TRB, Washington DC, 2002, p. 126–131.
PIARC, World Road Association, Technical Committee on Road Safety C13. Road Safety Manual. 2004, p. 82–85.
Hauer, E. Identification of Sites with Promise. Transportation Research Record 1542, TRB, Washington DC, 1996, p. 54–60.
De Leur, P.; Sayed, T. Development of a Road Safety Risk Index. Transportation Research Record 1784, TRB, Washington DC, 2002, p. 33–42.
Elvik, R.; Mysen, A.b. Incomplete Accident Reporting: Meta-Analysis of Studies Made in 13 Countries. Transportation Research Record 1665, TRB, Washington DC, 1999, p. 133–140.
AUSTROADS, Guide to Traffic Engineering Practice Series Part 4: Treatment of Crash Locations. Austroads Publication AP-G11.4/04, Sidney, Australia, 2004. 41 p.
Cafiso, S.; La Cava, G.; Montella, A.; Pernetti, M. A. Methodological Approach for the Safety Evaluation of Minor Two-Lane Rural Roads. In: Proc of the Conference European Road Federation – 1st European Road Congress, Lisbon, Portugal, 2004.
Cafiso, S.; La Cava, G.; Leonardi, S.; Montella, A.; Pappalardo, G. The Safety Inspection Operative Manual. IASP Report No. 1/05, Catania, Italy. 2005a, p. 1– 62.
Cafiso, S., La Cava, G., Leonardi, S., Montella, A., Pappalardo, G. Operative Procedures for Road Safety Inspections. In: Proc of the Conference Road Safety on Four Continents, Varsaw, Poland, 2005b.
European Union Road Federation. Guidelines to Black Spot Management – Identification & Handling. Brussels, Belgium, 2002, p. 13–14.
Transportation Association of Canada. The Canadian Guide to In-Service Road Safety Reviews. Ottawa, Canada, 2004, p. 1–157.
Transfund New Zealand. Safety Audit Procedures for Existing Roads. Transfund Report RA97/623S, Wellington, New Zealand, 1998, p. 1–51.
SETRA. The Design of Interurban Intersections on Major Roads. At-grade intersections. Bagneux Cedex, France, 1998. 126 p.
Siegel, S.; Castellan, N. J. Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. Boston, MA, McGraw-Hill, 1988, p. 348–362.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2006 Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press Technika
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.