Road safety audit is the formal examination of existing roads, future roads or various sorts of traffic projects by any independent group of trained expertise. They examine the deficiencies in road safety. There are various stages of road safety audits. Number of stages depends on the number of stages in a road project before completion.
- Feasibility study phase
- Preliminary design phase
- Detailed design phase
- Pre-opening phase
- In service phase
Feasibility Study
In feasibility study phase, trained specialist study and evaluate the results of following questions;
- What is the scope of this project?
- How many choices of routes available?
- What will be the impacts on the existing transportation system?
- Which design should be selected as a design standard for that road?
- How long this route could be continued?
- Which location will be the best location of interchanges?
- Number of lanes required for managing maximum average daily traffic?
- Where to provide the route terminals?
- What will be the effects on the environment?
- Control access
Technical team works on these questions step by step and at the end gives the most feasible solution possible.
Preliminary Design Stage:
Preliminary design is the second stage of road safety audits. In this stage designs of roads are carried out. As preliminary phase, therefore designing is not carried out in a very detailed. Following are road designs that are done in this phase;
- Alignment of horizontal and vertical curves
- Width of land and shoulder
- Layout of intersection
- Provision of super elevation and side slopes with pavements
- Provision of overtaking lanes
- Provision of separate way for pedestrians and cyclists.
- Safety arrangements during construction on site
- Provision of sign boards.
- Design of Link roads
- Space management
Detailed Design Stage
After the completion of 2nd stage, designs are carried out in detail. Following are the road designs that completes at the end of this stage;
- Signals
- Sign boards
- Line marking
- Lighting
- Intersection details
- Delineation
- Provision of shoulders
- Management of traffic during construction
- Design of road drainage system
- Provisions of way for road user groups. For example, pedestrians, cyclists, vans, trucks etc.
- Provision of slopes.
- Provision of road side objects
Pre-Opening Stage
In this phase technical audit team drive through the completed project. During drive, they observe the provision of safety level, quality, sign boards, road material and all other aspects that they took under consideration during the preliminary survey and detailed design phase. They came on the site during different weather conditions like during day time, night, etc… after the completion of survey they wrote a report on it and deliver it to the main authority.
In-service:
After the pre-opening examination, road is opened for public and during that still technical team remains active and they observe the working of safety features during heavy traffic.