INTEGRATED SAFETY IMPROVEMENT
The objectives of traffic management schemes is the development of a systematic process along with the various techniques that may be used for traffic management are described. The application of traffic management techniques to rural and urban roads is discussed. This includes treating routes or networks as a whole rather than simply focussing on isolated problem spots.
Past and likely future trends in road travel along with various techniques for travel demand management are addressed.
Traffic management should be logically applied and consistently enforced, or it will not be effective. Enforcement must be considered an integral part of traffic management.
Integrated safety improvement
Integrated safety improvement is an integral part of reducing traffic fatalities. Traffic accidents contribute significantly to the annual social cost of a country's GDP. A direct consequence of economic
development is rapid motorization. The traffic police play a very important role in reducing traffic fatalities by road policing, traffic management and traffic enforcement, accident investigation, accident reporting and analysis, driver licensing, vehicle registration and traffic education. The five pillars on which road safety, traffic enforcement policies and actions are built are:
- Road safety management
- Safer roads
- Safer vehicles
- Safer road users and
- Post crash care
A few efforts to impart a positive influence on road safety are listed below:
- Establishment of a lead road safety agency at national & state levels that is equipped with the power, expertise and capacity to carry out the necessary activities independently.
- Notify legislations with regard to helmets, seat belts, drinking and driving, speeding, day time running lights and use of cell phones on an urgent basis in all Indian states.
- Establish a dedicated and ring–fenced road safety fund at national and state levels to cover all road safety initiatives.
- Mandate road safety audits for all new and existing roads from the designing stage itself.
- Create a Motor Vehicle Accident Fund to provide compulsory insurance for all road users
- Standardize, regulate, and enforce vehicle safety requirements.
- Build capacities across various sectors—police, health, and transport-- at central and state levels
- Establish Centres of excellence in road safety that can work towards road safety by undertaking capacity building, training, research and monitoring.
- Adopt the principle of safe systems approach for design of all new roads in such a way that road design should be forgiving.
- Strengthen road safety information systems to obtain reliable, robust and good quality data to guide all road safety activities.
- For this purpose, data through the newly introduced road accident data collection formats should be strengthened at district and state levels with technical inputs.
Traffic calming schemes
- Traffic calming is a way of containing vehicle speeds by self-enforcing engineering measures and improving driver behaviour.
- Traffic calming has proved to be effective in restricting vehicle speed and in reducing the number and severity of road accidents, particularly in residential areas.
- Traffic calming uses physical design and other measures to improve safety for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.
- It has become a tool to combat speeding and other unsafe behaviours of drivers in the neighbourhoods.
- The aim of implementing traffic calming measures is to encourage safer, more responsible driving and potentially reduce traffic flow
- Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming such as
- narrowed roads and
- speed humps
- The three "E's"that traffic engineers refer to when discussing traffic calming are:
- Engineering
- (community) Education, and
- (police) Enforcement
- Residents of a community often contribute to the perceived speeding problem within their neighborhoods.
- Hence, instructions on traffic calming; stress that the most effective traffic calming plans entail all three components and engineering measures alone will not produce satisfactory results.
- Engineering measures involve physically altering the road layout or appearance to actively or passively retard traffic any of the following techniques:
- increasing the cognitive load of driving
- increasing the chance than an obstruction in the road will slow or momentarily stop motorists
- increasing the chance of passenger discomfort or even
- physical damage to a vehicle if speed limits are not observed (such as speed humps).
- especially designated areas where cyclists and pedestrians have legal priority over cars
- several visual changes to roads are made to encourage more attentive driving, reduced speed, reduced crashes, and a greater tendency to yield to pedestrians.
- Visual traffic calming includes lane narrowings, road diets, use of trees next to streets, on-street parking and buildings placed in urban fashion close to streets.
- Physical devices include speed humps, speed cushions and speed tables, sized for the desired speed. Such measures normally slow cars to between 16 and 40 km/h.
- Traffic calming devices are made of asphalt or concrete. However, traffic calming products made of rubber are emerging as an effective alternative with several advantages.
- Traffic calming can include the following engineering measures:
- Narrowing: Narrowing traffic lanes makes slower speeds seem more natural to drivers and are less intrusive than other treatments that limit speed or restrict route choice. Narrowing measures include:
- Lane narrowings can be created by extending sidewalks, adding bollards or planters, or adding a bike lane or on-street parking.
- Kerb extensions (also called bulbouts) narrow the width of the roadway at pedestrian crossings
- Chokers are kerb extensions that narrow roadways to a single lane at certain points
- Road diets remove a lane from the street. For example, allowing parking on one or both sides of a street to reduce the number of driving lanes.
- Pedestrian refuges or small islands in the middle of the street can help reduce lane widths.
- Converting one-way streets into two-way streets forces opposing traffic into close proximity, which requires more careful driving.
- Construction of polymer cement overlay to change asphalt to brick texture and colour to indicate a high-traffic pedestrian crossing.
- Vertical deflection: Raising a portion of a road surface can create discomfort for drivers travelling at high speeds. Both the height of the deflection and the steepness affect the severity of vehicle displacement. Vertical deflection measures include:
- Speed bumps, sometimes split or offset in the middle to avoid delaying emergency vehicles
- Speed humps, parabolic devices that are less aggressive than speed bumps.
- Speed cushions, two or three small speed humps sitting in a line across the road that slow cars down but allows wider emergency vehicles to straddle them so as not to slow emergency response time.
- Speed tables, long flat-topped speed humps that slow cars more gradually than humps
- Raised pedestrian crossings, which act as speed tables, often situated at junctions.
- Speed dips, sunken instead of raised
- Changing the surface material or texture (for example, the selective use of brick, cobblestone, or polymer cement overlay).
- Changes in texture may also include changes in color to highlight to drivers that they are in a pedestrian-centric zone.
- Rumble strips, when placed perpendicular to traffic in the travel lane act as speed bumps as they produce unpleasant sounds and vibration when crossed at higher speeds.
- Horizontal deflection, i.e. make the vehicle swerve slightly. These include:
- Chicanes, which create a horizontal deflection that causes vehicles to slow as they would for a curve.
- Pedestrian refuges again can provide horizontal deflection, as can kerb extensions and chokers.
- Block or restrict access. Such traffic calming means include:
- Median diverters to prevent left turns or through movements into a residential area.
- Converting an intersection into a cul-de-sac or dead end.
- Boom barrier, restricting through traffic to authorised vehicles only.
- Closing of streets to create pedestrian zones.
- Enforcement and education measures
- Enforcement and education measures for traffic calming include:
- Reducing speed limits near institutions such as schools and hospitals (see below)
- Vehicle activated sign, signs which react with a message if they detect a vehicle exceeding a pre-determined speed.
- Embedded pavement flashing-light systems which react to pedestrian presence at crossings to signal drivers and increase awareness.
- Watchman, traffic calming system
- Speed reduction has traditionally been attempted by the introduction of statutory speed limits. Traffic speeds of 30 km/h and lower are said to be more desirable on urban roads with mixed traffic.
- Zones where speeds are set at 30 km/h are gaining popularity as they are found to be effective at reducing crashes and increasing community cohesion.
- Speed limits which are set below the speed that most motorists perceive to be reasonable for the given road require additional measures to improve compliance.
- Attempts to improve speed limit observance are usually by either education, enforcement or road engineering.
- "Education" refers to targeted road user training.
- Speed limit enforcement techniques include:
- direct police action
- automated systems such as speed cameras or vehicle activated signs or traffic lights triggered by traffic exceeding a preset speed threshold.
- Cyclists argue for placing direct restrictions on motor-vehicle speed and acceleration performance.
- Reports on promoting walking and cycling specify use of comprehensive camera-based speed control using mainly movable equipment at unexpected spots as one of the top measures .
- Advanced countries have an estimated 1,500 speed/red-light camera installations and set a target for 30 km/h limits on 70% of urban roads.
No comments:
Post a Comment