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Data: 22/11/2010
Quality of road infrastructure is a vital element in ensuring safety and adequate investment in this area in EU Member States over recent decades has contributed to cutting fatalities. The underlying aim of strengthening infrastructure is to ensure that as few accidents as possible happen and that when they do, they are as minor as possible. The third panel discussion during the Road Safety Days looked at the challenge of upgrading infrastructure so as to achieve this aim.
Infrastructure development should take account of both human and vehicular aspects. The former include visibility, legibility of signs, coherence of road features such as speed limits, signs and markings, and traffic management. The latter cover aspects such as dynamics, particularly related to road surfaces, hard shoulders and potential physical obstacles.
The EU has made road safety impact assessments and audits, management of network safety and safety inspections mandatory on the trans-European road network. Some Member States are looking to apply these requirements to whole of their road networks and the DG Move-funded PILOT4SAFETY * project also aims to apply the approach to selected secondary roads.
One factor in cutting road deaths and injuries has been the construction
of motorways. The risk of casualties on two-lane roads outside of an urban zone is thought to be around 10 times higher than on a motorway. Safety on both motorways and other roads is enhanced by application of intelligent transport systems (ITS) which has been underway for over 20 years.
The EU’s new ITS legal framework, adopted in July 2010, aims to speed up interoperable deployment of such systems across Europe. Initial road management priorities are traffic and travel information, the eCall emergency system and intelligent truck parking.
Improvements to infrastructure also have a role to play in protecting
the environment and reducing congestion, not least in urban areas. Eliminating obstacles that hinder the flow of traffic is necessary in order to optimise road capacity in relation to traffic demand, thereby ensuring accessible mobility for all road users.
Sito web: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/projects/pilot4safety.pdf
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