Prepared by:

Russell Brownlee, M.A.Sc. P. Eng., Associate, IBI Group

Brian Malone, P.Eng., PTOE, President Synectics Transportation Consultants

Abstract

Over the past ten years explicit consideration of road user safety has risen to the forefront of the transportation industry. The focus has shifted from purely moving vehicles and pedestrians efficiently, to ensuring that the systems are operated in a manner that allow them to safely arrive at their intended destinations.
Safety initiatives traditionally have been reactive in nature. Safety issues or potential problems were identified through the analysis of historic collision data from existing roadways. A number of jurisdictions have developed various ranking and network screening systems to determine safety “black spots” to pursue remedial treatments at locations that are not performing at the same level of safety as others.

From this safety improvements covering engineering, education andenforcement, are identified and implemented through capital or operating budgets. Although many jurisdictions are well on their way to implementing some form of transportation safety improvement programs, transportation planning seems to have remained focused on capacity and future network improvements to combat congestion. Safety considerations are typically limited to ensuring that road and right-of-way designs were up to current standards, thus making the resultant facilities “inherently safe”.

We all recognize the need ensure that we are not planning, designing and implementing tomorrow’s safety issues and “black spots”; however, the process of doing so has not been formalized. One of the principal challenges in documenting procedures is a varied opinion on the range of activities that safety-planning initiatives should include.

The following is a discussion of potential means of integrating safety into the planning, design and operations of future transportation systems and will include a discussion of how safety can be explicitly incorporated into/through transportation planning projects, road safety audits, safety impact studies, land
development and site design.

For a complete copy of this paper, please contact: jsuggett@synectics-inc.net