Code of good practice and checklists

SAFETY IN ROAD DESIGN

Code of good practice

• A user-friendly road will give drivers the necessary time to adapt to new and unexpected situations. In situations that are more complex or involve higher speeds, it is recommended to have an advance warning section with proper signing and instructions. 
• A user-friendly road will give drivers a well-designed field of view with sufficient contrasts to increase alertness. It will provide good optical guiding and orienting facilities with symmetrical and orthogonal impression.
• The amount of information also influences driver’s speed. The term used for this is density of the field of view. Efficient speed management relies on changing brightness and color contrasts to avoid subconscious speeding up.
• Lateral field of view and its information provide the most important information to master the difficult task to hold balance on the road. Structures over the road like bridges, advertising, signaling and toll facilities should be symmetrical, of equal height, and the angle of skew to the own road should be less than 15° from perpendicular.
• Driving reliably through a curve also critically depends on the quality of the field of view and a clear distinguishable Gestalt of the curve. 
• The driver orientates themselves in the environment that surrounds them..To estimate their position relative to the road and to their surrounding and to other drivers, they depend on their changes of position, the changing view axis and the changing points/lines of reference in the environment. The most serious consequences arise from eye-catching objects that differ from the road axis.
• Drivers follow the road with an expectation and orientation logic formed by their experience and recent perceptions. These affect their actual perception and reactions.

 Checklists 

A road safety inspection checklist is used to assess possible hazards in existing roads. A road safety inspection checklist is used to assess possible hazards in existing roads. This digitized checklist uses a yes-no-n/a response set and allows photos and notes to be included on relevant question items.

Administrators of various local urban bodies use checklists to check on the work of their subordinates. The following checklist should be used at different stages of the audit:  

• Standard Checklist- 
• The standard checklist shall be filled out in the feasibility stage/monitoring stage/ or maintenance stage. 
• An audit using the standard check list should be carried out for any maintenance or retrofitting of the existing infrastructure.
• Standard checklist also needs to be filled to ensure implementation of the project and subsequently for periodic inspection.
• On all roads, a safety audit using standard checklist should be carried out every year preferably after every monsoon season.
• Design Checklist- 
• The design checklist shall be filled after completion of the proposed design, with a pre-requisite that a standard checklist has already been filled, in case of brownfield project.
• Construction Checklist- 
• The construction checklist should be filled out during the construction phase of the project.
• Multiple construction stage audits should be carried out on construction projects that last longer than 3 months. 
• It is recommended that the construction stage audits be carried out once every three months on longer duration projects.
• The following flow chart depicts the process for carrying out RSA.
• Design Stage Audit (using Design Checklist).
• At this stage detailed design of the proposed project should be finalized and DPR/draft final design should be available.

• Construction Stage Audit (using Construction Checklist).

Construction auditing shall be done when project is under implementation and it mainly looks after the safety aspects at the construction site. Construction stage audit shall be conducted once every three months till the end of construction.

Post Construction Audit/ Monitoring Stage Audit (using Standard Checklist)

This audit is done soon after completion of the project and periodically during operation of the infrastructure (once every year, preferably after monsoon season) and after completion of every maintenance works. RSA for Brownfield/ Greenfield Projects

Conduct the Feasibility Stage Audit (using Standard Checklist).

All deficiencies need to be listed so that they could be addressed in the detailed design.

Undertake safety improvement/ maintenance works

Deficiencies from the previous step shall be addressed / rectified by the maintenance engineer.

Is the project proposed on an existing road?

Any deficiency identified?

YES

Revise design drawings to address the deficiencies listed in the design audit.

Any deficiency identified?

NO

Good! Check next year

RSA (Road Safety Audit) can also be done on any existing road infrastructure, even if no infrastructure improvement or new infrastructure is being added. In this case, RSA (monitoring stage) shall be conducted using a standard checklist and the process after the monitoring stage shall be followed as represented in the above flow chart.