Author(s)

Fotini Kehagia, Christos Braziotis, Pantelis Kopelias

Abstract

Greek legislation (Presidential Decree104/2011) in line with the European Directive 2008/96/EC plans to implement Road Infrastructure Safety Management (RISM) for the road network of Greece. The procedure of Road Safety Audit (RSA) is one of the main RISM procedures as a means for preventing accidents. This paper addresses the RSA findings on a national 2-lane, 2-way road network in Greece, as a reactive approach to identifying safety issues and infrastructure deficiencies. The examined road network is a typical road in Greece and the presented approach analysis may operate as a report to road-way authority officials to gain a better understanding on the current state assessment of the typical type of road. The RSA conducted by a team of auditors who was experienced in road design as well as in road safety engineering and user driving behaviour. The RSA team developed checklists for the specific roadway, according to the Greek legislation, checking the conformity of road layout to Road Design Specifications, potential violations of driver expectancies related to roadway design, and risk potential accidents points. The findings were categorized into groups taking into account the analysis of human factors.  The proposed remedial measures are based on behavioural studies and they presented in quali- tative evaluation. However, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses combined with the specifics in each case are imperative for the key issues to be addressed.

Keywords

2-lane road, accidents, human factor, road safety audit.