ABSTRACT
Roads and their condition have a major impact on both the road users’ and general public’s perceptions. These perceptions are associated with the road users’ expectations for comfort, safety and aesthetics, of which safety is unquestionably the most important. Therefore, improvement of the road safety is or must be the primary goal of any road administration, and this should be demonstrated by appropriate actions.
The article introduces safety programs and actions undertaken for a few years by the road authority of Warmia and Mazury region of Poland. Both reactive and preventive approaches are discussed. Reactive programs, based on information about road accidents (hot-spots) and their consequences, are dedicated to short-term and range limited safety improvement treatments. Based on the project accident database hot-spots and safety indicators have been determined. Improvement of the safety indicators values belongs to a long-term maintenance strategy of the road authority. The safety indicators, calculated for homogenous road sections according to EuroRAP methodology, describe potential for road safety improvement. The estimated improvement potential is used to determine maintenance sections and prioritize rehabilitation treatments. To support these actions, a dedicated web-based service eWypadki (wypadki means accidents) has been developed and implemented by the road authority. The service reflects the real occurrence and distribution of accidents and their circumstances and has a high potential for identification of tailor-made safety measures treatments and their implementation. The article presents lessons learnt along with good practices resulting from Warmia and Mazury experiences.
