Road Safety Audit Checklist

What is a road safety audit?

On existing or future roads or intersections, traffic safety problems are identified and evaluated by conducting a traffic safety audit. A independent team of multidisciplinary auditors determines whether a road is operational and makes recommendations for risk reduction. A road safety audit helps to reduce the frequency and severity of road accidents and increase road safety for the public.

This article deals with:

1. 4 Tips for preparing a road safety audit

2. How a road safety audit is conducted

3. Digital technology to improve road safety audits

4 Tips for preparing a road safety audit

Before a safety audit is carried out on a road, the right team must first be put together. It is important to know which steps are necessary before, during, and after the road safety audit. The following tips will help to carry out a road safety audit safely and efficiently:

1. Determine the destination
   Knowing the objective of the audit should help to put together the right team and to develop an action plan for the road safety audit. Also, the auditors should know from the outset whether the safety audit will be carried out for a new road or an existing intersection where accidents have been reported. This information has an influence on how the road safety audit is conducted.
2. Forming a team
   The areas of expertise of the team members vary depending on the objectives. Such a team for a road safety audit can consist of road engineers, road safety specialists, traffic operation specialists, and a local contact person (e.g. a local police officer). The advantage of a multidisciplinary team is obvious: the members bring different perspectives to the future design of road safety. Once the team is assembled, everyone should meet on the road before the implementation of the road safety audit to discuss the exact procedure.
3. Carrying out the audit
   The audit team conducts the road safety audit under different conditions and at different times of the day to identify all obvious and potential road safety concerns. This involves collecting photos and data on possible road risks and causes of accidents. As weather and road conditions can vary, everyone in the team should have appropriate tools and personal protective equipment (PPE) before going on site.
4. Prepare the audit report
   After the road safety audit, all the photos and data collected are organized and analyzed. All relevant data are compiled together with recommendations in a report. The report is then presented to the project manager or the client who requested the audit.

How is a road safety audit conducted?

After the preparation of the safety audits for roads was extensively planned, the implementation can now take place. Usually, this is done by an independent and certified expert. Four phases are described for the preparation of the road safety checklist:

1. Preplanning
2. Rough draft
3. Execution planning
4. Traffic release

As a working basis, a checklist for traffic safety is made available to the responsible person for planning, which contains all safety-relevant planning documents. This is critically reviewed by the expert, independently of other planning objectives, concerning the aspects relevant to road safety. Besides, In general, a site visit is carried out to identify and document safety-relevant planning aspects. The final report documents the individual deficits. Besides, further planning objectives and road safety aspects are listed in a prioritized manner.

Digital technology for road safety audit

When important tasks such as a road safety audit have to be completed, the technology behind it must be reliable. A mobile application like Lumiform improves the efficiency of the audit by making data collection easier and more manageable. The audit app helps road safety professionals to capture important information anytime, anywhere easily. It also enables them to generate a full report immediately after each audit automatically. With Lumiform, auditors can:

• The flexible form builder makes it possible to create new individual checklists for audits at any time and to adapt them again and again.
• The Lumiform app ensures that the schedule is followed. All employees and managers receive notifications about the procedure and due dates.
• Take unlimited photos of traffic safety issues and annotate the images to better explain what was observed on the scene.
• After each traffic audit, automatically generates a report that can be instantly shared with other responsible parties.
• The data collected during traffic audits is recorded under the Analysis tab. Here, all data can be accessed and performance reports can be viewed broken down by time, location, and department.