RISER and the challenge of roadside safety
Every year 42,000 people are killed in Europe as a result of road accidents, and over 170,000 are left with serious disabilities for life. The economic and social costs of road accidents is over EUR 160 billion, representing 2% of GDP. Europe simply cannot afford to continue paying the costs in human life. In an attempt to address this issue, the 'Roadside infrastructure for safer European roads' (RISER) project, funded to the tune of €1.96 million, provided guidelines for optimal design and maintenance of roadside infrastructure on new and existing roads. The RISER project initiated several activities to improve data collection - based on real world crash information. This information was needed to understand single vehicle crash situations and then this was related to crash-test data mandated in the European Union. The overall objective of the project was to provide highway safety professionals with the resources and guidelines necessary to design and operate safer roadside infrastructures. These resources will allow all stakeholders to identify the best design for a given road section based on the specific objective and technically supported guidelines. The team hopes that this will translate into a significant reduction in the number of single vehicles collisions - and the tragic consequences associated with such collisions. Accident data on single-vehicle collisions on major rural roads was collected and used to create databases. Upon reviewing the data, a number of hazards on European roads were identified. These included: unprotected trees and street furniture, poorly placed and maintained pedestrian crossings, poorly maintained roadside safety equipment, road surface defects, driver view obstructions, inadequate signalling, hazardous safety barriers, and no consideration for vulnerable road users. Special software was then designed. The role of this software was to create simulations that would further understanding on impacts with these roadside structures. An inventory of crash-test data was collected for impacts with poles and safety barriers. The combination of accident data, simulations and crash-test data has provided a unique insight into the characteristics of single-vehicle collisions, helping those involved in the design and evaluation of the roadside environment to understand them better and make recommendations for consideration when drafting design guidelines. The project also calls for a European framework directive on safe road management. A pan-European framework is necessary, given the extreme diversity of road safety levels observed throughout Europe. The project team was coordinated by Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and brought together systems manufacturers, research institutes; University departments and Government bodies located across Europe.