Gautrans road safety audits

Abstract

Paper presented at the 22nd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 14 - 16 July 2003 "National issues affecting the movement of people and goods - strategic approaches", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. ABSTRACT: A number of road safety audits were undertaken by the Gauteng Department of Public Transport, Roads and Works (Gautrans) according to the methodology developed by the National Department of Transport. Apart from the obvious reasons for undertaking road safety audits, the objective of the project was also to evaluate and test the road safety audit methodology. The aim of this paper is to report on the findings of the project, as well as proposed modifications to the road safety audit methodology. An important conclusion of the project is that road safety audits can have significant advantages. All road authorities should consider implementing road safety audits on all projects involving changes to the road network. All projects should preferably be audited, from the smallest to the largest. A number of modifications to the road safety audit methodology are proposed in the paper. The modifications include the provision of a methodology for the undertaking of site inspections, changes to checklists used for road safety audits, and a change to the approach to safety audits on existing roads.