Austroads Experience with Road Safety Audits

Austroads, the association of Australian and New Zealand road transport and traffic authorities, published its world-famous Road Safety Audit Guide in 1994. This conference paper, from the 2002 meeting of the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) Transportation Group, discusses some of the Austroads activities since the publication of the Road Safety Audit Guide. Activities covered include the first International Road Safety Audit Forum (1998); a Road Safety Audit Summit (2001) for road authorities in New Zealand and Australia; revision of the 1994 guideline (second edition published 2002); evaluation of the safety benefits of road safety audits; development of a methodology for assigning a risk factor to audit recommendations, called the Road Safety Risk Manager; development of an expert system to help the audit process; and development of a National Road Safety Engineering Training Course (which includes a Road Safety Audit component). This paper supports the thesis that Road Safety Audits are valuable tools in the overall management of the road system, through the identification and treatment of hazards in road projects and the existing road network.