|
The benefits of incorporating road safety audits into the design process can save DOTs money by identifying safety needs before roads and intersections are built or
redesigned. More importantly, they can reduce the instances of human injury.
The benefits of RSAs are that they:
- May help produce designs that reduce the number and severity of crashes
- May reduce costs by identifying safety issues and correcting them before projects are built
- Promote awareness of safe design practices
- Integrate multimodal safety concerns
- Consider human factors in all facets of design
PennDOT's RSA Experience
“Pennsylvania DOT has done 40 RSAs. We’ve found that RSAs are a valuable, low-cost tool that enhances the safety of a project by providing unbiased early recommendations for the project based on safety and multimodal needs. We intend to make RSAs an easily and frequently used tool in the design process.”
Girish (Gary) N. Modi, P.E.
Chief, Safety Management Division
Bureau of Highway Safety and Transportation Engineering
Pennsylvania DOT
Link to PennDOTs experiences to learn the many
ways RSAs have been beneficial to them.
"The road safety audit process is valuable from the perspective of identifying deficiencies, developing mitigative strategies, improving public relations and enhancing Mn/DOT's credibility."
Bernie Arseneau
Director, Office of Traffic, Security and Operations.
Minnesota DOT
NYDOT's RSA Experience NYDOT has also benefited from conducting their own
RSAs. They have experienced
the following:
-
Crash reductions occurred at over 300 high crash locations treated with low cost improvements.
-
Crash reductions ranged from 20% to 40%, depending on the type of improvement implemented.
International RSA Experiences A recent AUSTROADS
study assessed nine design stage RSAs. Below is a summary of the findings
of the study:
-
The benefit/cost ratios realized when recommendations of the RSAs were
implemented ranged from 3:1 to 242:1.
-
Approximately 75% of all implemented recommendations had benefit/cost
ratios greater than 10.
-
The majority of design audit findings required only very low-cost
responses (65% of recommendations had a cost < $1,000).
This study also evaluated the recommendations from RSAs done on existing
roads. Below are the findings:
-
Benefit/cost ratios ranged between 2.4:1 to 84:1.
-
Over 78% of all recommendations had benefit/cost ratios > 1.0
-
Approximately 47% of all proposed actions had benefit/cost ratios >
5.0
-
Approximately 95% of all recommendations with a cost less than $1,000 had
benefit/cost ratios > 1.0.
In addition, other international communities have experienced their own benefits of conducting road safety audits:
-
1% to 3% reduction injury costs
-
Minimizes crashes
-
Minimizes need for remedial work
-
Reduces project’s life cycle costs
-
Improves the awareness of safe design practices
-
Leads to improved standards and management practices
-
Considers the safety needs of all road users
-
Cross-fertilization between departments in an agency
These benefits were cited from various international publications and based on experiences and observations of auditors and agencies that have implemented road safety audits. The cost reduction figures are based on the findings of studies in Great Britain.
| 
