Austroads has released a report about safe system treatments, identifing real world experience in the practical application of solutions that can mitigate crash severity.
Safe system is internationally regarded as the best practice approach to road safety.
Although Australia and New Zealand have been early adopters of the approach since 2004, there has been a lack of clarity amongst practitioners on how best to integrate the approach into their daily activities.
Assessment frameworks and tools are now emerging that allow the alignment with safe system be better quantified.
The report, Towards Safe System Infrastructure: a compendium of current knowledge, presents a hierarchy of treatments that provide practitioners with a basic understanding of the types of practices that should now be applied on a trajectory towards a safe system.
Primary treatments are capable of virtually eliminating death and injury, and certain supporting treatments can transform the network a step closer to reducing the overall harm being caused.
The report brings together the principles, theory and rationale behind the Safe System along with established examples of real-world implementations.
The document summarises and highlights the state of knowledge of speed management, median treatments, roadsides design and management (clear zones versus barriers), intersection issues, vulnerable road user issues, motorcycle and heavy vehicle safety.
The ongoing development of assessment tools is also discussed.
