![]()
Introduction Many times, traffic safety issues come to the forefront following an incident or near miss. However, safety professionals can take a more proactive view of site safety and efficiency by conducting road safety audits (RSA). These audits are especially helpful for large sites, such as office or educational campuses, large construction sites, petrochemical facilities and manufacturing locations. When coupled with lessons learned from public roadways, RSAs can be a useful tool for hazard mitigation.
A road safety audit is a multi-disciplined examination of an existing or future roadway, performed by an independent, qualified team. The team should include professionals with experience developing roadways but who are not involved in the original development of the roadway being examined. The RSA focuses only on safety and considers all road users and environmental conditions, with the overall goal of focusing on the safe operation of roadways and crossings.
An RSA tries to answer two primary questions:What parts of the road are a safety concern and to whom?
How can those issues be eliminated or mitigated?
Traffic safety is often focused on driver behavior and training, which are primarily administrative control solutions. By performing an RSA, an organization can focus higher on the Hierarchy of Controls by implementing engineering control solutions that are less reliant on driver actions. In many ways, an RSA draws on the Prevention through Design (PTD) concept of assessing risk and planning solutions before incidents occur. In keeping with the PTD concept, an RSA is most effective if it can be performed during conceptual and preliminary design—anticipating and eliminating hazards before they are introduced. But, regardless of when an RSA is performed, it can significantly reduce risk and improve efficiency. Similar to any other form of proactive risk assessment, an RSA identifies opportunities for improvement before an incident or near miss demands attention.
Benefits of a Road Safety Audit vs. Traffic Safety Study While traffic safety on public roadways is managed through formal analysis and specifically designated countermeasures, it is impractical to approach private sites in the same manner.
An RSA is a safety performance examination performed by a team of stakeholders. It qualitatively estimates and reports on potential road safety issues and identifies opportunities for improvements in safety for all road users.
Site News