Management of Road Infrastructure Safety
DOI: 10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.303
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Summary
This paper addresses the challenge of improving global road safety by examining Road Infrastructure Safety Management (RISM), a systematic approach to preventing accidents through infrastructure design and maintenance. The research is motivated by the disparity in road safety outcomes between high-income countries, which have seen significant fatality reductions, and low- and middle-income countries, which account for 90% of global road fatalities despite having fewer vehicles. The authors argue that shifting from reactive accident analysis to proactive safety management—incorporating principles like Vision Zero and the Safe System approach—is essential for accommodating human error and reducing casualties. The study, conducted by an IRTAD sub-working group, reviews ten consolidated RISM procedures, including Road Safety Impact Assessment (RIA), Road Safety Audit (RSA), High Risk Sites (HRS), and Road Safety Inspection (RSI). These procedures are categorized by their application across the road infrastructure life cycle, ranging from proactive planning and design stages to reactive operation and maintenance phases. To assess global implementation, the authors analyzed survey data from 23 IRTAD member countries, evaluating the presence of national laws, network coverage, responsible parties, available tools, and barriers to implementation. The survey specifically investigated eight of the ten procedures, identifying factors such as legal frameworks, technical guidelines, and software availability that influence the adoption of these safety measures. The findings reveal that RISM procedures are rarely applied to entire road networks, with most implementations limited to national roads or motorways. While procedures like RSI, RSA, and HRS are fully implemented in approximately half of the surveyed countries, others like Safety Performance Indicators (SPI) and In-depth Investigations remain underutilized. The primary barriers to implementation identified were a lack of resources or tools, particularly in European countries, and the absence of mandatory legislation or recommendations. Specific challenges included insufficient data for SPI and HRS, and a lack of qualified staff or know-how for RSA and RIA. The analysis highlights that countries with dedicated regulations are significantly more likely to possess adequate technical guidelines and implementation capacity. The paper concludes that successful RISM requires a holistic approach addressing data availability, legal frameworks, funding, knowledge, and tools. The authors provide six key recommendations: benchmarking against international good practices, implementing minimum safety standards, making RISM procedures legally binding, involving health authorities in data development, ensuring adequate institutional capacity and investment, and sharing experiences across countries. The study emphasizes that while design standards are important, they are insufficient alone; a proactive, legally supported, and well-resourced management system is necessary to effectively reduce road accidents and casualties globally.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| archive | success | openalex | — | — | 5 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-26 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-19 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-19 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-26; verification: verified.
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Information type
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- Applied Guidance: standards test procedures
- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes