China Transport Topics No. 07 72893 August, 2012 Reducing Traffic Accidents in China: Strengthening the Use of Road Safety Audits Fei Deng, Phillip Jordan, and Mike Goodge World Bank, Washington, DC China’s road network is quickly expanding and the number of new drivers is growing rapidly, increasing the need to improve the road safety of new and existing road projects and traffic schemes. Road safety audits, when systematically implemented by a qualified and independent audit team, can drastically increase road safety and reduce the number and seriousness of car accidents at a low cost to benefit ratio. This note reviews the specific role of road safety audits, international experience and practices, and specific recommendations for improving the use of road safety audits in China. The establishment of a comprehensive national standard and provincial policies for road safety audits, training on road safety audits, along with an accreditation system for auditors are necessary for mainstreaming road safety audits in China. INTRODUCTION impact assessments, safety ranking of the road network in operation, regular safety inspections, Road safety audits, a formal examination of the accident data management, training and crash potential and safety performance of a certification of safety personnel, and an future or existing road or traffic project, have exchange of best practices. been used by leading road authorities since the 1990s as an essential part of a set of tools to THE SPECIFIC ROLE OF ROAD SAFETY AUDITS prevent crashes and protect road users. Implemented by independent and qualified audit Roads and traffic schemes have always been teams, the audits ensure new road designs and designed with safety in mind. However, despite traffic schemes are as safe as practical and safety standards and good intentions, many new prevent crashes, or at least minimize their road projects quickly become crash “blackspots.� effects. A reason might be that the new road or traffic scheme—even though designed according to In China, a 2004 “Safety Assessment Manual for safety standards—increases motorist speeds. A Highway Projects� from the Ministry of new traffic scheme may also be biased towards Transport regulates and guides the use of safety motorized vehicles, often at the expense of audits. The manual recommends safety audits, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. but does not make it mandatory. While some Moreover, the combination of different and provinces, such as Guangdong, Xinjiang, Henan, possibly outdated or inappropriate standards, Hebei, Zhejiang, Sichuan, and Guizhou, already design team members working independently, carry out more systematic safety audits, many or various design outputs inadvertently opportunities exist to increase road safety in combining in a way that reduces road safety, can China by strengthening and mainstreaming the increase the number of crashes at a site. use of high-quality road safety audits. In addition to problems in the design of a new project, changes during project construction can It should be noted that audits will be an effective also lead to a degradation of safety when the tool to manage road infrastructure safety only if effects of those changes are not fully analyzed. they are carried out along with a comprehensive Finally, a new project may also inadvertently package of other tools, such as road safety increase hazards on adjacent roads. China Transport Topics No. 07 2 World Bank Office, Washington, DC Road safety audits are designed to specifically authorities requires addressing several key address and prevent these kinds of unexpected elements, including audit stages, project increases in traffic accidents by providing an selection, audit steps, team qualifications, integrated assessment of a new (or existing) auditor accreditation, and the development and road project. By analyzing the situation— use of an audit manual. International experience through a study of the design and a visit to the suggests several approaches and good practices. actual location—audits can identify problem Audit Stages areas and recommend improvements. Specific Road safety audits can be undertaken at several objectives are to: or all six stages of a road development project:  Minimize the risk of crashes on a new  Planning (feasibility study) road project and minimize the severity  Preliminary design of the crashes that do occur;  Detailed (final) design  Minimize the risk of crashes on adjacent  Construction (traffic management during roads (that is, to avoid the possibility road works) that the project creates crashes  Pre-opening elsewhere on the network);  Post opening/existing road  Ensure road safety for all road users, particularly slow moving traffic and Some countries (such as the United Kingdom) pedestrians; require audits at three or four of these stages,  Reduce the long-term costs of a new while others (such as Australia and New Zealand) road project (considering that unsafe require audits at all six. In addition to national designs may be expensive or even requirements, the number of audit stages can impossible to correct at a later stage); also be decided by road authorities based on a  Improve awareness of road safety road’s planned level of service and available engineering principles among all budget. In practice, audits at the preliminary and involved in road planning, design, detailed (final) design stages yield best results. construction, and maintenance. Audits during road works are necessary to protect road workers and road users. In both By removing preventable crash producing cases, audits are ideally performed early in the elements (such as inappropriate intersection design or construction process. layouts) at the design stages and mitigating the effects of remaining problems by including Project Selection—Which Projects Should Be suitable crash-reducing elements (such as anti- Audited? skid surfacing, crash barriers, and road signs), While it would be best to audit every new road road safety audits provide a final and project or traffic scheme at each of its design comprehensive safety check before a new road and construction stages, road authorities around project or design scheme is built and put in use. the world have to work with limited resources Road safety audits will not necessarily make and use various approaches to decide on what every new design completely safe, but they do projects and stages to audit. Countries may help place safety higher on the decision making require audits for road projects above a certain agenda and lead to deliberate decisions about monetary value, for certain classes of roads safety aspects based on carefully considered (such as expressways and highways), or for every advice. stage of larger and more expensive road projects INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE but at fewer stages (perhaps one or two) for lower-cost projects. Road safety audits are not a casual check, but vigorous and structured processes. The sound implementation of road safety audits by road China Transport Topics No. 07 3 World Bank Office, Washington, DC Steps in the Audit Process blackspot investigation, traffic engineering, and In most countries, once an audit is agreed upon, civil engineering. the audit process itself consists of eight relatively straightforward steps: Auditor Accreditation  Selection of an independent audit team To ensure only qualified audit teams assess road  Provision of relevant project plans, projects, most countries take advantage of the drawings, and other documentation Austroads2 accreditation criteria for road safety  Commencement meeting 1 auditors. Used by the Austroads network for  Assessment through desktop study and more than 15 years, their set of criteria has site inspection become an internationally accepted system for  Development of audit report and auditor registration. To become and remain recommendations accredited, auditors are required to:  Report submission and completion 1. Have a minimum of five years of relevant meeting 1 experience in road design, traffic  Project manager response to the report engineering, road safety engineering, or  Actions to address safety concerns other closely related road safety It is important both the road agency and project discipline; manager understand and commit to the audit 2. Successfully complete a road safety process. The road agency, through the project audit training course approved and manager, is responsible for ensuring a high recognized by a State Road Authority; quality audit team is appointed. The same 3. Participate in at least five road safety agency will also eventually need to resolve any audits under the guidance and outstanding safety issues in the project leadership of a senior auditor, of which (especially those that rely on increased funding) at least three must be design stage and should closely follow project audits. audits and one a pre-opening or existing road audit; and Audit Team Qualifications and Technical 4. Participate in at least one audit per year Capacity to maintain practice and experience. The success of a road safety audit and its results To become registered, a road safety auditor has in terms of reducing the number and impact of to satisfy the first two criteria. After participating car accidents depends for a very large part on in five audits (the third criterion), an auditor can the qualifications and technical capacity of the become a senior road safety auditor. The final audit team. The team also needs to be fully criterion is a requirement for all registered independent from the project design team. Only auditors to maintain accreditation. by exception (for example for a very small or low-volume and low-speed project) could a Use of a National Road Safety Audit Manual project be audited by a single auditor. Led by an Road safety audit manuals provide clear experienced senior road safety auditor, the team instructions and requirements for audit teams. should include members with a range of Most countries have improved their audit backgrounds related to road safety engineering, processes after developing such a manual. A 1 Commencement meetings and completion meetings tend 2 Austroads is the association of Australian and New to become unnecessary once a province or country Zealand road transport and traffic authorities, which becomes familiar with the audit process and after a number of audits have been carried out. Most times, the audit can consist of the six Australian state and two territory be started and completed via emails and the electronic road transport and traffic authorities, the transfer of plans and reports. Department of Infrastructure and Transport, the Australian Local Government Association and the New Zealand Transport Agency. China Transport Topics No. 07 4 World Bank Office, Washington, DC manual cannot provide all the necessary 6. Own team audit. An individual in the technical knowledge for the auditors, but design team acts as auditor. overviews, instructions, case studies, and photos (Independence may be difficult to show or videos of common safety concerns can in such arrangements, but this is strengthen and promote consistency among generally better than no road safety road safety audits. The United Kingdom, audit at all.) Australia, Canada, and Dubai have well regarded Arrangements vary among road authorities, but manuals that have been prepared or revised in in general larger road authorities are encouraged recent years. A number of other western to develop and use specialist audit teams or European nations also have developed useful have adequate numbers of specialist auditors in audit manuals recently. a private consultant pool. Organizational Arrangements ECONOMIC COSTS AND BENEFITS Road authorities have made various A common perception is that road safety audits arrangements to include audits and road safety are costly, not produce any useful results, and specialists’ advice, with specific arrangements only increase project costs (by requiring new usually depending on available resources. work) and lengthen the project’s overall design Possible arrangements are: and approval process. Several studies, however, 1. Formal approval of a road design by a show the opposite and highlight the benefits of specialist audit team. A qualified team of implementing road safety audits early on in the road safety experts audits and formally design process. approves each design before a scheme can advance to the next stage. Indicative costs from Australia for example 2. Specialist advice reported to an suggest that auditing a new large-scale project at independent project manager. A four stages will add only 4-10 percent of the specialist safety team prepares an audit total costs of the road design, or about 0.5 report and submits it to a third party percent of the total project cost. This percentage (usually an independent senior manager) is even less for larger projects. who decides on possible actions and also directs the design team as necessary. A British study, designed to quantify the benefits 3. Specialist advice reported to the of road safety audits, compared before and after designer. A specialist safety team crash statistics for a sample of audited and non- submits its report to the original audited traffic schemes and found that traffic designer who determines what actions schemes that had been audited achieved an to take. average casualty saving per year of 1.25 person, 4. Second design team audit. The second compared to a saving of 0.26 person for non- design team audits the first design audited schemes. A second British study team's work and reports back to the first estimated that the average saving from team. The first team decides whether to implementing changes at the design stage rather accept or reject the audit than after construction was approximately recommendations. US$20,000. 5. Audit by second design team, reporting Another cost-benefit analysis in Denmark to an independent assessor. A second compared real audited projects to simulated design team audits the work of the first models of the same roads without the design team, with the audit report implementation of audit recommendations. The reviewed by an independent assessor analysis yielded a first year rate of return of 146 who decides on actions to take. percent. A study in Jordan, which reviewed China Transport Topics No. 07 5 World Bank Office, Washington, DC projects that had not been audited but When audits are performed, most project developed problems soon after construction, owners engage auditors from research institutes, compared an estimation of crashes that would consulting firms, or design institutes (sometimes have likely been avoided by remedial safety also involving traffic police) to carry out the audit recommendations to actual crash data. The safety audit. study concluded that a road safety audit would have provided a first year rate of return of 120 Specifically, China’s system for road safety audits percent. Finally, an Australian study indicated an is weak in the following five key areas: average benefit/cost ratio of 36:1 for audits of 1. Regulatory framework and sector road projects at the design stages, and of 6:1 for mandates. Few provincial road audits of existing roads. authorities have policies covering road safety audits and sector mandates are In general, benefits of road safety audits range unclear. from specific benefits at the site to broader 2. Technical Guidelines. While a “Safety community and macro-level benefits, with those Assessment Manual for Highway benefits quickly offsetting any costs. At the Projects� exists, the robustness and community level, the benefit of preventing even practicality of the technical manual one casualty already far outweighs the cost of a could be further improved. full audit. Comparatively, the resources 3. Follow-up to project recommendations. necessary for an audit are in fact quite small, Audits are not just intended to and, over the whole life cycle of a road, will be document issues, but must be followed more than recouped from savings, including by actions to improve safety. In many crash cost and road furniture maintenance cases in China, however, audit savings. On a macro level, road safety audits completion is not followed by remedial contribute to establishing a combination of crash actions. Legal enforcement to ensure a reduction targets, generally fostering the project owner responds in writing to importance of road safety engineering, raising each audit recommendation (to either awareness for the safety needs of all road users, confirm acceptance or justify rejection) and continually improving safety standards and is lacking. procedures. 4. Process independence. Audit teams must be fully independent of the project. At IMPROVING ROAD SAFETY AUDITING IN CHINA the moment, this does not seem to be Since its first introduction of road safety audits the case for projects across China, with in the mid 1990s, China has gained limited audit teams often mingled with design experience using audits to strengthen road teams. safety. Recently, new academic research is 5. Auditor qualifications and accreditation. contributing to a programmatic approach to Addressing China’s shortage of skilled road safety, using both quantitative and road safety engineers and subsequent qualitative methods to study key traffic safety lack of experienced road safety auditors topics. These research areas will likely improve will take time but is important. The the implementation of road safety audits and general skill level could be increased strengthen road safety culture in China. through formal training, professional Despite a general awareness among road development, and use of international administrators, road engineers, and researchers experts. An accreditation system can of the potential use of road safety audits, few regulate audit team qualifications. road professionals in the public sector in China have been involved in road safety audits and Action Steps most lack relevant knowledge and training. China Transport Topics No. 07 6 World Bank Office, Washington, DC To strengthen the use of road safety audits for about auditor qualifications and support reducing traffic accidents and impacts, China the development of an “audit could take advantage of the experience of other profession� in China, with status and countries with more mature audit systems. professionalism. Specifically, China is encouraged to: The implementation of safety audits has helped  Develop a comprehensive national audit integrate safety aspects into all levels of decision standard. This Road Safety Audit making for new road projects and traffic Standard should not only include the schemes by road authorities around the world. technical aspects of audits, but more With China building new roads, highways, and importantly also address institutional expressways at a pace unmatched in the world, arrangements and procedures in the the time is right to adopt road safety audits for Chinese context. the benefit of all road users.  Improve the technical guidelines for road safety audits. A practical road safety ********** audit manual (supported by resources on DVD) will strengthen and streamline Fei Deng is a Senior Transport Specialist in the audits. China should select a style of East Asia Sustainable Infrastructure Department manual that suits its needs and proceed at the Washington, DC Office of the World Bank. quickly to develop a local Chinese audit She is the road safety focal point for the East manual. Asia and Pacific Region.  Develop provincial road safety audit policies. Provincial road authorities Phillip Jordan is the Managing Director/Principal without an audit policy should be Consultant of Road Safety International. He is encouraged to develop one. Policies can well known for his work on road safety audits, follow a basic template and reflect local blackspot investigations, and road safety resources and safety needs. In general, engineering training. each province should consider the terms and conditions for the following three Mike Goodge is a road safety audit specialist issues: making road safety mandatory, who lives and works in Asia. He is an Associate of engaging fully independent audit teams, Road Safety International. and legally enforcing proper actions to be taken in response to audit Chengcheng Tang from Research Institute of recommendations. Highways under MOT (China), Geoffrey Kurgan  Provide training about road safety audits and Yi Yang, Transport Associates of the World to project managers and auditors. Bank, also contributed to the note. Widespread trainings and workshops across the country, combined with a This note is part of the China Transport Note mentoring program for auditors (with Series to share experience about the experienced, possibly international transformation of the Chinese transport sector. auditors guiding new auditors), will be For comments, please contact Fei Deng necessary for several years to increase (fdeng@worldbank.org). awareness and skills among project Any findings, interpretations, and conclusions managers and auditors. expressed herein are those of the authors and do  Establish an accreditation system. A not necessarily reflect the views of the World register of accredited auditors (either on Bank. Neither the World Bank nor the authors a provincial or national basis) will guarantee the accuracy of any data or other provide reassurance to road authorities information contained in this document and China Transport Topics No. 07 7 World Bank Office, Washington, DC accept no responsibility whatsoever for any consequence of their use.