Author(s)

O Giuffrè, A Di Francisca & A Granà

Abstract

In accordance with the Road Safety National Plan recently adopted in Italy and the initiatives subsequently undertaken by the National Infrastructure and Transport Department, this paper contains proposals for implementing an urban road safety audit in Italy. Our research will aim at evaluating the possible effects of such a practice. Our more specific aim is to determine the real or potential risk on roads by examining road infrastructure and observing road user behaviour in the absence of accident data. Four urban junctions, situated on one of the main thoroughfares of urban traffic in Palermo, were studied and a comparison was made between the data obtained by observing road user behaviour and that, which would have been supplied by expensive accident data analysis. 1 Premise Following the revision of the Highway Code, which came into effect in 1993, the competent authority (the LLPP Ministry, currently the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport) has encouraged a considerable amount of pre-regulatory studies. Such activity has recently generated numerous technical documents of two types: regulatory regarding planning, construction and road control and programmatic concerning traffic safety. In implementing a system of preventive safety control, the National Plan for Road Safety, whose lines of enquiry have recently been approved by the National Parliament, identified a preferential measure in making traffic mobility safer. Starting from this perspective, the relevant Minister issued special guidelines to analyze safety, thereby inspiring well-known international procedures such as the Road Safety Audit [1].

Keywords