Ripcord-Iserest gave scientific support to the European transport policy road safety target of 2010 by establishing two fundamental achievements:
1. Best practice tools and guidelines for road infrastructure safety measures concerning accident prediction models, road-safety inspections, and black spot management.
2. Tools for cost-efficiency assessment of different safety measures in order to develop and manage a safe road infrastructure in a cost-effective way.
The project reached these two results in a harmonised way, building a "common practice" approach for accident prediction models, road-safety audits, road safety inspections and black spot management.
Considering half of all road traffic fatalities and injuries in rural areas in Europe occur on secondary roads, the project developed specific software tools and a handbook for local road authorities.
Key technical outputs were as follows.
An in-depth survey of the Accident Prediction Models (APM) and Road-Safety Impact Assessment literature. The project concluded that APM can differ for the same road type in different countries, therefore paving the way for novel recommendations regarding the way these instruments can be used by practitioners.
A focus on the concept of "Self-explaining roads", a road designed and built in such a way as to induce adequate behaviour on behalf of the motorist. The project forwarded road-design recommendations concerning the layout and design elements of secondary roads, incorporating road-user behaviour models.
The project developed SEROES, a freely accessible database for road authorities responsible for secondary roads, containing the "Best Practice Safety Information System", a summary of information regarding road-safety improvements. In a further step, SEROES was demonstrated together with the Decision Support Safety Tool. These decision tools provided the user with several solutions, a cost range, and information about the effect of each of the provided measures.
A GIS Decision Support Tool was developed to assist local and regional road authorities to determine road safety problems, select appropriate safety intervention measures, and provides the opportunity to predict the road safety level of a municipality/region and the cost-effectiveness of road safety projects.
In general terms, the Ripcord-Iserest project, through its recommendations and technical developments, contributed to setting standards and practical tools for European local road managers. In particular, the project addressed the following policy issues, highlighting them with tools and recommendations:
- regulatory actions necessary for on Safety Impact Assessment (new roads - pre-design phase;
- safety Audits (new roads - design, construction & early operational phases);
- network Safety Management - management of "High accident concentration sections" on existing roads);
- safety inspections (existing roads).
Moreover, the project set up recommendations in a Safety Handbook for Secondary Roads, outlining organisational and implementation aspects of road safety. From a local policy point of view, the project's tools allow road-safety results to be compared with road safety goals made by regional or national policymakers, thus allowing for a 'fine-tuning' of road-safety infrastructure design and European-wide comparisons.
