Introduction
12.2.1 The Strategic Road Network (SRN) that is managed by Highways England comprises 4,400 miles, including motorways, which is 2% of the English road network by length, and carries one third of England’s road traffic. Local authority roads comprise the remaining 98% of the road network (184,100 miles), ranging from country lanes and residential streets to major arterial routes. The busiest 4,400 miles of the local road network carry around 16% of all traffic. The proposed Major Roads Network that comprises 4% of England’s total road network, carries 43% of all traffic and 16% of those killed or seriously injured nationally in road crashes. 92 Just under half of this network is managed by local
authorities, the remainder by Highways England.
12.2.2 A Road Safety Foundation study indicates that the majority of road deaths since 2010 occurred on the network outside cities and towns; 50% of deaths took place on 10% of the network and the risk of death on A roads was around eight times greater than the risk on motorways. In terms of crash types on the A road and motorway network, run-off crashes with roadside objects are the leading cause of death, while side impacts at junctions are the leading cause of serious injury. Head-on crashes and impacts with pedestrians and cyclists hit at speed are the additional most important crash types in the network which involve death and serious injury. 93
Safe System and Safe Roads and Roadsides
12.2.3 Implementing the Safe System approach has major implications for the safe planning, operation and use of the road network, even for countries such as the United Kingdom which are active in road safety.
12.2.4 Safe System engineering approaches on major roads involve:
Establishing clear urban and rural road hierarchies which better match function to speed limit and layout and design;
Separating oncoming traffic on high-volume, high-speed roads to prevent head-on collisions and provide crash protective roadsides to address run-off road collisions; and
92 Quarmby D and Carey P (2016). A Major Road Network for England, Rees Jeffreys Road Fund.
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Ensuring safe speeds at intersections to reduce fatal and serious side collisions, and ensuring safe speeds on roads and streets with dangerous mixed use where separation of motor vehicles and vulnerable road users may be difficult.94
12.2.5 The Safe System approach focuses on the prevention and mitigation of death and serious injury, as opposed to other outcomes, and involves adopting predictive approaches to assess fatal and serious injury risk, rather than reactive approaches based on actual numbers of a variety of crash outcomes. A variety of Safe System intervention is practised daily by road engineers in Britain - aspects of speed management and the widespread implementation of roundabouts are notable examples. However, the Safe System approach challenges traditional approaches to road engineering planning, design and operation.95 Many parts of the network allow speeds which are in excess of the
protective quality of roads and roadsides, most notably on single carriageway rural roads. Some key road engineering standards will now need to be updated to align with Safe System principles to take sufficient account of human tolerance to injury thresholds. These include design standards at junctions and the management of road use from low- to high-speed environments which expect vulnerable road users and users of smaller vehicles to compete successfully against faster, bigger vehicles.
Strategic Road Network and Major Road Network
Safe System assessment frameworks
12.2.6 Systematic risk rate mapping and star rating using objective data is carried out by International and European Road Assessment Programmes (iRAP, EuroRAP). Risk rate mapping assesses the risk of death and serious injury based on historical data. Some results from the latest annual Euro RAP risk mapping report by the Road Safety Foundation are presented in ‘Risk Mapping of Major Roads’.
Table 14. Risk mapping of major roads
EuroRAP risk mapping of major roads
EuroRAP Risk Maps for Britain’s major roads have been published by the Road Safety Foundation since 2002, and show the risk to a road user of being involved in a fatal or serious crash. These annual Risk Maps for Britain’s motorways and A roads have become a key national road safety performance indicator revealing measurement of risk on roads across nations, regions and authorities. Half (51%) of British road deaths are concentrated on the mapped network which comprises 10% of the whole road network.
The Road Safety Foundation’s latest annual report (2017) found that fatal and serious injury crashes on the network reduced by just under 1% between 2010-12 and 2013-15. 96 The
analysis reveals that crashes leading to serious injury increased on the EuroRAP network in 6 of the 10 British nations and regions. Improvements in Scotland and Yorkshire and the Humber masked a generally worsening safety performance, particularly in the South East and South West.
The report showed that in 2013-15, 6% of vehicle travel on the EuroRAP network was on unacceptably higher risk roads (high or medium-high risk). 91% of motorway travel, but only
94 UNRSC (2012). Safe roads for development: a policy framework for safe infrastructure on major road transport networks, Geneva.
95 Ciaburro T and Spencer J (2016) UK Road Safety - Seizing the Opportunities, Safer Roads, PACTS, London. 96 Road Safety Foundation (2017). Cutting the Cost of Dangerous Roads, November 2017, Basingstoke.
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3% of travel on single carriageways, was on roads rated low risk. Local authority roads are higher risk than trunk roads, with 13% of local authority travel on high or medium-high risk roads.
Other findings include:
The largest single cause of death on the network was run-off road crashes (30%)
The largest single cause of serious injury on the network was crashes at junctions (33%)
High risk single carriageway roads are 67 times more risky than low risk single carriageways
Single carriageway A roads are 7 times the risk of motorways and nearly 3 times the risk of
dual carriageway A roads.
12.2.7 An outline of iRAP star rating is given below. A rating has been undertaken for the SRN using the latest version of the iRAP model but has not been published, although prioritisation of treatments for sections of the network with high fatal and serious injury risk is reported to have commenced. An investment plan in support of the iRAP star rating target has not yet been published. An earlier iRAP star rating97 of the SRN in 2010
indicated that:
50% of all motorways are rated 4* and 50% are 3*.
20% of dual carriageway A roads are rated 4* and 78% are 3*.
62% of single carriageway A roads are rated 2*, most of the rest are 3*.
12.2.8 A Safe System Assessment Framework has also been devised by Austroads for Australasia which, while a tool based on subjective judgement, is also proving to be a useful tool in new road projects. 98
Table 15. Using star ratings to assess the safety quality of motorways and main roads
Star ratings carried out by EuroRAP and iRAP assess the level of protection against the risk of death and serious injury in collisions for all main user groups afforded by the road environment. 50 attributes of the built-in infrastructure are coded at 100 metre intervals to predict risk of death and serious injury. In the latest protocol, each road is given a star rating from 1 to 5 stars. Recommended levels for different types of roads are 5* for nationally significant roads, 4* for national roads and 3* for busy regional roads.
Minimum star ratings for the infrastructure safety of major roads are increasingly being used as policy targets for both new and existing roads. Studies indicate large crash reduction and cost benefits when moving upwards from one star to another. The risk of death or serious injury per kilometre travelled on a 5* road is approximately 10% of the risk on a 1* road. 99
Barrier treatments, well-designed roundabouts and traffic calming treatments can produce reductions in serious and fatal injuries of 80% or more.100 Crash costs can be halved with
each star rating. The Road Safety Foundation, through its work with local authorities on new local A road schemes within the Safer Roads Fund programme, is conservatively forecasting
97
Ratings based on V1 of the iRAP model. The latest, more sophisticated model now includes star ratings to 5* for different road users and a risk component.
98 Austroads (2016), Safe System Assessment Framework, AP-R509-16, Melbourne.
99 OECD/ITF (2016). Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift to a Safe System, Paris. 100 EuroRAP (2011) Crash rate -Star Rating comparisons: Review of available evidence, May 2011,
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that for every £1 invested, there will typically be more than £3 in return from the recommended schemes.
12.2.9 The government has announced that it is considering the development of ring-fenced major roads funding in its consultation paper of 23rd December2017.101 Several
engineering professionals highlighted the desirability and opportunity for government to set a similar safety performance framework for a new Major Road Network, as for the SRN goal and targets set out below. This would include targeting iRAP star rating performance in support of a long-term goal and interim targets to prevent and mitigate death and serious injury and embedding the Safe System approach into the mainstream of its planning, design, operation and use.
12.2.10 Highways England is clearly providing safety engineering leadership in many aspects of Safe System, although some experts engaged with note that core attention to speed management is missing. As Highways England has outlined 102, implementing Safe System
on the SRN means:
Recognising that road elements have known effects on safety which, when measured, quantify the risk of death and serious injury on road sections and routes. Using Star Ratings will further strengthen proactive management and mitigation of risk before crashes and casualties occur;
Systematic treatment of entire routes and networks is required;
Reducing/controlling energy exchanged in crashes;
Creating self-explaining and forgiving networks; and
Acknowledging that road users make mistakes.
12.2.11 In line with good practice, the government has set a target hierarchy for Highways England comprising a long-term goal with a supportive interim target for reducing deaths and injuries and a supporting star rating target:
By 2040, the number of deaths and serious injuries on the SRN should approach zero;
By 2020, there should be a 40% reduction in deaths and serious injuries (2005–09 baseline); and
By the end of 2020 > 90% of travel on the strategic road network should be on roads with an iRAP rating of 3* (or equivalent).
12.2.12 Amongst its activity, Highways England is ensuring that new designs for expressways (a new road type which is part-A road and part-motorway) are building in proactive elements to prevent death and serious injury.
City streets
12.2.13 Safe System leadership and activity in safety engineering is also evident at city levels in London and other cities. Transport for London (TfL) has introduced a 3 by 3 street classification which distinguishes between different types of street for planning purposes,
101 https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposals-for-the-creation-of-a-major-road-network 102 Highways England, Leonard R (2016) Star Ratings for the Strategic Road Network, PACTS Conference,
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as shown in Figure 3.103 This is seen by transport experts as a highly useful city model for
setting out a framework for safety intervention.104 An urban star rating is under
development by EuroRAP.
Figure 4. TfL’s Street Type Matrix
12.2.14 In support of the Mayor’s Vision Zero goals and targets in his new transport strategy, London is working on key safety performance indicators to more closely manage its interventions. New attention in recent years has been given to cycling safety alongside its promotion as a healthy activity. Bristol provides a further example of a city adopting Safe System, where systematic speed management is being put in place to improve the safety of walking and cycling.
12.2.15 In general, however, Safe System is not well understood at local level. Prioritisation of road sections requiring treatment by fatal and serious risk is not generally evident in local network management. Where funding allows, local authorities are employing traditional approaches of treatments at cluster sites based on historical injury numbers105. However,
the Safer Roads Fund, although challenging to its participants, is generally viewed as encouraging highly useful and complementary proactive Safe System implementation for 50 local major roads which present the highest risks of death and serious injury. The maximum potential bid is £200,000 per kilometre of route. Beyond that local authorities make a 10% contribution. Some local authorities generally report that this provides a sizeable incentive in monetary terms to implement effective activity, but a few local authorities reported that they are not incentivised by this because of maintenance costs106. Supported by the RAC Foundation’s Pathfinder Project and Road Safety
Foundation training, iRAP assessments and the development of safer road investment programmes are underway. It is expected that guidance for proactively addressing high-
103http://content.tfl.gov.uk/street-types-matrix.pdf accessed 30.11.17
104 Quarmby D and Carey P (2016). A Major Road Network for England, Rees Jeffreys Road Fund. 105 See Appendix B, Safe Roads & Roadsides: Local Government
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risk regional roads will be produced by DfT, the RAC Foundation and the Road Safety Foundation at the end of 2017.
12.2.16 The Road Safety Foundation reports that there are 36 persistently higher risk A roads that are not being addressed by the Safer Roads Fund, with a total length of 472km and associated economic loss of £195 million over 3 years. A further 6,111 kilometres on more than 550 sections of unacceptably high-risk roads identified by the latest risk mapping will need to be addressed by the Safer Roads Fund “in the drive to bring road deaths towards
zero”.107
12.2.17 A range of action has been identified in engagement with the road safety engineering profession and experts to launch Safe System implementation. These include:
A review of the national road classification; a review of existing road infrastructure design standards to better reflect Safe System principles, philosophies and approach;
The use of established tools such as iRAP star ratings as an important means of objective assessment of the safety quality of much of the road network;
Demonstration projects of innovative treatments;
Promotion of Safe System by key professional organisations;
A programme of national guidance on Safe System implementation; and
A programme of training in Safe System and ring-fenced funding.