Innovative tools and practical methods to improve the safety of the national road network in France

The operators of the French national road network improve user safety by designing, operating and maintaining more than 20,000 km of roads. The transposition of the European Directive No. 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety management is an opportunity to reinforce, complete and promote the four procedures used in France to improve the users’ safety. The article discusses how these approaches are applied in practice, feeds back lessons from their implementation and presents their recent developments in connection with the Directive. Then, an innovative tool for the real time collecting of the infrastructure components is presented: ISRI'Cam. The Road Safety Impact Assessment procedure allows the user to detect and quantify the safety impacts of the different variants of the project studied and to feed the debate leading to the choice of a variant. For new roads or those substantially modified, the Road Project Safety Monitoring procedure (in French CSPR) organizes safety audits performed at different study stages of the project, prior to traffic opening and then after a few months of road operation. On the existing network, the User Safety on the Existing Network procedure (in French SURE) allows the user to rank the sections of routes depending on their potential gain of safety. On sections with the greatest ranking/potential, a complete diagnosis of the infrastructure (accident analysis, collection of road characteristics data) is made, resulting in an action plan with ex-post assessment. Since 2009, road safety inspections (in French ISRI) are performed every three years. Specially trained inspectors, not knowing the route and independent of the local road operator, cover the network during day and night. With their "fresh eyes" focus, they detect events of the infrastructure connected with safety that daily road operators would no longer perceive.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://www.piarc.org/en/order-library/13949-en-Proceedings%20of%20the%20XXIVth%20World%20Road%20Congress,%20Mexico%20-%202011.htm
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission of the World Road Association – PIARC.
• Corporate Authors:

  World Road Association (PIARC)

  La Grande Arche, Paroi Nord, Niveau 5
  F-92055 La Defense Cedex,   France 
• Authors:
  • Chassande-Mottin, R
• Conference:
  • 24th World Road Congress
  • Location: Mexico City , Mexico
  • Date: 2011-9-26 to 2011-9-30
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: 24th World Road Congress Proceedings: Roads for a Better Life: Mobility, Sustainability and Development

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Evaluation and assessment; Highway safety; Impacts; Inspection; Safety audits; Traffic characteristics
• Geographic Terms: France
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01500192
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 2840602679
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Nov 27 2013 10:17AM