The effects of future developments on the quality of infrastructure; Exploration of the consequences for road safety.
Gevolgen van toekomstige ontwikkelingen voor de kwaliteit van infrastructuur : verkenning van consequenties voor verkeersveiligheid.
Many roads and constructions were built between the 1950s and the 1980s and will reach the end of their technical life span in the next decades. Road authorities foresee a peak in the necessity to replace this infrastructure after 2020. At the same time, there are warning signs that the budgets of road authorities are declining, which means that less money is available for management and maintenance of roads, constructions and public space. This will probably lead to more and more problems on the road network in years to come. The question is what risks this entails. This replacement issue is not an isolated matter. Developments that can offer both opportunities and threats for the technical and functional qualities of the road network are to be expected in other areas also. One of these functional qualities is road safety. Road safety in this context is the starting point of this exploration which was commissioned by the CROW knowledge centre and was co-funded and initiated by the Fund Collective Knowledge of Civil Engineering (FCK-CT) and the province of Overijssel. The topics that are investigated in this outlook are: * Which developments in road traffic will we encounter between the present and 20 to 25 years from now? * What influence are these developments expected to have on the design and maintenance of roads? * What are the expected consequences for functional qualities of roads, including road safety, if road authorities would not make any added adjustments or, on the other hand, would replace the infrastructure in an optimal way? This outlook consists of two parts: Part 1 is a literature study into the developments that are expected concerning: * infrastructure; * vehicles; * technology and telematics; * demography; * other developments, such as urbanization, climate change, mobility trends and behavioural change. SWOV road safety experts have made an assessment of the expected impact of these developments on mobility (use of infrastructure) and road safety. Part 2 is a further exploration of the expected risks and opportunities due to the described developments. The expected maintenance problem is the starting point. This part of the outlook is once again the result of the estimates of road safety experts. Finally, the risks and opportunities have been detailed in this report in a Road Safety Risk Explorer in relation with management and maintenance for through roads (surfacing, constructions), distributor roads (surfacing, constructions) and access roads (surfacing). Two different scenarios were used as a starting point: 1. a scenario in which the budget until 2050 is sufficient to keep the quality of the infrastructure at the present level; 2. a scenario in which the budget until 2050 is insufficient to keep the quality of the infrastructure at the present level; The most important road safety risks that were identified are: * ageing society; * increase in new vehicle types, electric cars and e-bikes; * urbanization; * increase in freight transport in main ports; * increase in use of devices by road users. The negative consequences of these developments will generally be greater as road maintenance deteriorates; this increase in risk differs per road type for most developments. Technology is expected to offer opportunities for road safety improvement, and even to neutralize the negative consequences of developments. This may be in the form of driver support systems inside vehicles, but even more so about the technological support of the vehicles themselves, self-driving vehicles being the most advanced version. These effects were presented to a group of municipal and provincial road authorities to check to what extent the method used makes it clear for them what risks and opportunities are to be expected. This risk explorer turns out to be helpful for raising awareness in road authorities of future risks and opportunities. On the basis of the expected risks and opportunities road authorities can customize or adapt their active policy. Road safety is one of the functionalities of infrastructure. It is conceivable that the method of the risk explorer can also be applied to other functionalities. This would give road authorities a more integral picture of the risks and opportunities of various future developments on all functional qualities of the infrastructure. In the light of the expected replacement issue, including low-cost solutions, this can assist policy makers and politicians in making more informed choices in answer to the question whether and, if so, how the different functionalities can be and remain safeguarded from the infrastructural angle.
- Record URL:
-
Corporate Authors:
Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Verkeersveiligheid SWOV
, -
Authors:
- Goldenbeld, C
- Dijkstra, A
- Aarts, L T
- Schermers, G
- Publication Date: 2016
Media Info
- Features: References;
- Pagination: 117 p.
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Development; Maintenance; Risk; Safety; Technology; Traffic; Vehicles
- Identifier Terms: Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Verkeersveiligheid
- Uncontrolled Terms: Quality; Road networks
- Geographic Terms: Netherlands
- ITRD Terms: 9011: Design (overall design); 1152: Future transport mode
- Subject Areas: Maintenance and Preservation; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01648143
- Record Type: Publication
- Source Agency: Institute for Road Safety, SWOV
- Report/Paper Numbers: R-2016-5
- Files: ITRD, SWOV
- Created Date: Oct 5 2017 9:37AM