Intervention Areas/Infrastructure
2. INFRASTRUCTURE: ROAD AND PERIMETER
It isn’t possible to ensure that all roads have the same degree of safety. The running speed over the road is the key determinant of the risk of accident and whether people will survive in case of an accident. We have the opportunity to save the lives of many people by increasing the safety level of the roads, avenues, and streets and determining proper speed limits to these road sections and ensuring the compliance of people.
As the non-compliance road behaviour is the leading fault causing traffic accidents more amongst the road user behaviours, identifying safe speed limits suitable for roads becomes one of the priorities. Besides, identifying risky road sections, where accidents occur in the road structure, signals that these are also the sections requiring urgent improvement in road structure.
Accurate planning is the first stage of a safe road network
The first field of application of traffic safety principles shapes in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance stages of the road network.
Right decisions should be made on where the priority areas of investment will be, for infrastructure arrangements are expensive and long-term investments. It is important to ensure a single standard in efforts to be made, and the construction and maintenance of the road according to these standards across the country. The construction of roads, describing itself as self-expressing roads, where all road users can understand the road standards on that road section with signs, signals, and lights should be the priority while determining the standards.
In the formation of residential areas and the construction of trading areas, the construction of roads to ensure transportation to these areas is essential. It is necessary to calculate the density of private and commercial vehicles for commercial areas and the activities of suppliers to transport goods for commercial transportation, and the demands on public transport vehicles. In residential areas, it is necessary to consider several matters such as the use of private vehicles in commutes to work, the routes and frequencies of public transport vehicles, the establishment of connections with the commercial spaces, schools, and sanctuaries.
The form of life of people shapes based on population growth and technological advancements. The infrastructure of the roads should be designed with the vision that transportation modes, enabling physical activity, including walking, and making them prefer public transport more will stand out, and enabling new transportation options.
Establishing a safe road system means to put into practice infrastructure arrangements proved to have protected human life
As road infrastructure arrangements require a high number of investments and are costly investments, they bring benefit to all road users in the long run when planned, designed, and managed properly.
According to the results of international researches, building flexible barriers in-between the two-way traffic running and roadside in road sections where vehicles with a high-speed run, may decrease mortality by 90%. Likewise, the traffic lines designed as rumble strips is 25% effective in decreasing all types of accidents and 42% effective in decreasing accidents resulting in death and happening as going off the road. Furthermore, the construction of roundabouts is effective in decreasing the accidents in available intersections and in ensuring safe crossing of pedestrians in elevated road sections.
In urban areas, the use of transportation methods putting forward the physical activities being more suitable for road users in terms of health is encouraged when environmental improvements, as well as safe infrastructure design, is ensured. Measures such as calming the traffic, separating walking trails and bike lanes with physical separators, strengthening the road lightings, and building walking trails are taken with this design.
Serious road infrastructure investment programmes are still applied in Turkey. While the general level of the road network is increased, the improvement of accident black spots and hot spots where traffic accidents exclusively happen frequently is ensured as a priority.
According to the Energy Theory put forward to prevent the happening of deaths and serious injuries resulting from accidents by William Haddon, accepted to be one of the important researchers bringing an analytic perspective to traffic safety important representatives of modern injury epidemiology; to prevent deaths and injuries in traffic accidents, it is suggested:94,95
- To prevent the accumulation of motional energy in only one of the transportation modes and the use of dangerous vehicles, and endangering infrastructure,
- To prevent the accumulation of high energy in transportation by imposing speeding restrictions in roads, preventing the production of powerful vehicle engines, and installing speed-limiters in available vehicles,
- To prevent the uncontrollable release of energy by equipping vehicles with safety measures, constructing the infrastructure to obstruct collision, and ensuring the compliance of road users to rules,
- To prevent the centring of the kinetic energy originating from collision to a certain point by designing the point of collision of vehicles obtuse and in a way to disable the accumulation of energy at a certain point,
- To prevent the release of energy in accidents happening as a result of the uncontrolled encounter of road users by separating moving traffic elements in terms of time and space, physically separating the roads allocated to vehicle and bicycles and vehicles and pedestrians, and placing barriers in-between,
- To place barriers eligible for absorbing the energy to arise when an accident happens between the road users with the potential of colliding,
- To prevent the point of collision of road users with the potential to collide from harming people (Producing bumpers out of soft materials, using soft materials in barriers on roads, ensuring that motorcycle riders use head guards, etc.),
- To establish systems enabling response in the fastest way by detecting accidents as early as possible, remove the injured out of the vehicle without getting harmed,
- To perform an effective rescue on the scene, providing the best treatment available by ensuring transfer to the trauma centre urgently.
As is seen, the recommended matters set forth the effect of road infrastructure and road perimeter, the safety of the vehicle, and the interventions after the accident on saving lives.
Safety improvement of bidirectional highways
Safety measures in bidirectional highways bear a special meaning in the context of the general safety measures to be taken in the highway system, and the measures to be taken in these roads are reviewed in the following groups:96
- Calming the traffic to protect vulnerable road users,
- Planning strips enabling overtaking the vehicle in the front and pertinent to separate the oncoming traffic, and left turn,
- Building median strips preventing the head-on collision of vehicles and overtaking the car in the front faultily,
- Ensuring sufficient lighting in dangerous road sections and road sections with the potential to encounter the oncoming traffic,
- Improving the vertical route in roads,
- Lowering the speed limits in hairpin bends and informing the road users on the lowering of the speed limit from a proper distance,
- Conducting regular signalization on speed limitations,
- Building rumble strips,
- Controlling and improving the damages occurring in road structure regularly, removing structures and materials such as trees, electric poles, etc. on the roadside.
Prevention of vehicles to certain road sections and the adoption of speed lowering measures is prominent amongst the traffic calming measures, and it is possible to calm the traffic and increase traffic safety by putting into practice some other measures such as:97
- Narrowing streets,
- Yielding the right of way to pedestrians and bicyclists,
- Making one-way streets and preventing alleyway connections,
- Pedestrianizing some of the streets,
- Placing speed limiters,
- Elevating the pedestrian walk lines,
- Roundabout,
- Using rumble equipment on roads,
- Physical barriers,
- Speed limiters,
through which the limitation of traffic flow speed within a residential area is endured with 30 km/hrs, and it is considered possible to ensure the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists with the speed limit below 30 km/hrs.
It is important to design and classify roads in a way to prevent humans from benefitting, and determine speed limits according to this classification
Roads have several functions, which are used by differed types of vehicles and have protectiveness at various levels. The design of urban roads in line with the use and protection of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users is a natural outcome of their functions. Establishing a hierarchical system between roads and the presence of infrastructure features pertinent to their intended use is also important in terms of the protection of road users. It is necessary to decide such matters as the land planning, detection of road sections where traffic accidents intensively happen, the condition of vehicle and traffic flow, behaviours of pedestrians, and the speed of the road in efforts made in this regard.
Critical progress was made in terms of the regulation on the road infrastructure safety management and the road infrastructure
The fundamental principles of road infrastructure safety management, impact assessment of road safety, road safety control, safety ranking and management of road network, and rules and procedures on the scope of road safety inspections, and the control the inspectors will make were determined as part of the “Regulation on Highway Infrastructure Safety Management” published in the Official Gazette dated 21.10.2018 and No. 30572. Accordingly:
The road safety impact assessment involving all necessary efforts for the cost-benefit analysis evaluating the information on road infrastructure safety to contribute to the decision of proper solution amongst options suggested by being performed in all road infrastructure project, and of different options.
The ranking of road sections with high accident intensity and the network safety ranking in traffic ways of road sections is made complying with the principles identified at least once every 3 years. The instalment of proper signals in road sections carried out maintenance works and threatening the safety of road users, and the signals having the feature to become visible during the day at night, and at safe distance is ensured.
In traffic ways, separate road safety inspections are conducted to determine matters on road infrastructure safety and prevent accidents.
These inspections are carried out periodically to;
- examine the road network in terms of road infrastructure safety,
- determine the potential impact of the roadworks on the safety of traffic flow,
- improve the road infrastructure at a sufficient safety level and ensure continuity.
The construction of roads to protect all road users was aimed at with the “Sustainable Safety” put into practice for road infrastructure safety. The following principles are followed in the entire road network according to this approach:
Classification of roads according to the functions they serve
Sustainable safe roads; are built divided into three categories according to the functions expected from the road; mobile roads, access roads, uniting roads.
Mobile roads; are roads generally ensuring fast and productive travel under safe conditions in longer distances. These roads can sometimes be considered as intercity state roads.
Accessible roads; are roads enabling safe mobility with low speed in settings where the vulnerable road users are frequently available, and access to places such as houses, shops, offices, companies, etc. with all the other traffic modes. Roads that require low speed and attentive cruising with short-distance vehicle traffic. It means the roads between train or tram stations and houses.
Uniting roads; interconnect the mobile and accessible roads with two different functions and systematic to one another, namely, describes the roads gradually ensuring the transition between rapid traffic and a road allowed to have a maximum speed of 30 km/hrs. Each road having only one function is of great importance in terms of road safety.99
In other words, all standards of use of standards of all roads serving the same function, including their horizontal and vertical signals, and speed limits are the same.
The vehicles to use the roads allocated by being classified by their elements such as volume, speed, and weight
It is the use of all harmonious vehicles, in respect of their speeds, size, and direction of travel, the same road whenever possible. Vehicles with big differences in terms of size, speed, and direction of travel shouldn’t use the same road according to this principle. In other words, buses or trucks, trucks and cars, the motorcycle shouldn’t use the same roads, moreover, the municipality buses to stop frequently and cards shouldn’t use the same road. Likewise, the vehicles to go straight ahead and the ones to turn left to not to use the same road is also included in vulnerable road users physically from vehicle traffic. In cases where physical separation isn’t possible, the speeds of all vehicles should be minimized, and the road structure should be supported with roundabouts and intersections with the elevated ground.
The comprehension of roads by everyone without needing another element thanks to construction standard and horizontal and vertical signalizations
The road users should easily understand how to act and how other road users may act from the physical structure of the road in a road section they have been for the first time. The use of same road standards and horizontal and vertical signs, and the road structure changing based on local conditions being in line with the standards is important to ensure this.
All physical structures, objects and, barriers that the road users may contact in the roadsides to be placed to not bring damage to humans
The structure of the road should be in a way to ensure injury as little as possible in case of an accident. It is necessary to remove these objects or structures with such features in road perimeters to prevent a vehicle from going off the road from crashing an object with sharp corners or pointed end. The forgiving road has a social meaning in Sustainable Safety; experienced drivers provide convenience and yield the right of way to drivers understood to be younger and inexperienced. Thus, the punishment of inexperienced drivers through death and injury as a result of an accident is prevented with this method.100
Best Practice Examples on the Contribution of Infrastructure Arrangement to Traffic Safety
Practice Example 2. Highway Network Safety Management Approach
Highway Network Safety Management is an approach that was jointly developed by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BAST) in Germany and the Ministry of Environment in France, Technical Department of Transport, Highway, Bridge Engineering, and Traffic Safety (SETRA). Highway Network Safety Management approach is a system enabling the detection of road sections required to be primarily improved for institutions responsible for the construction and maintenance of roads.
The safety potential of road is examined in this approach. The financial size of the accidents happening is identified with the safety potential and the financial damage caused is calculated, the expenses to be made in case the same road section is constructed with the best infrastructure investment possible is calculated, then it is decided that the more the gap there is, the more urgent it is to improve the specified road section. The positive aspect of the Highway Network Safety Management approach is that it enables the analysis of different types of road according to the classical accident perimeter road improvement approaches.101
Practice Example 3. 2+1 Roads
The safety standards of the single-platform roads used by bidirectional traffic was decided to be raised in Sweden by 2025. Within this scope, the cable-type median strip barrier practice was adopted between traffic lanes to prevent the head-on collision of vehicles using such roads as of 1998. As part of these improvements, 13 meters wide conventional roads were started to be redesigned by standards called “2+1” Road”.
In “2+1” Road” road design, the roads are constructed as two going lanes, and one coming lane, or vice versa. The two lanes continue around 2 km and after creating a road section to overtake the vehicle in front, the two lanes are reduced to single lane, this time the road platform used by the oncoming traffic is transformed into two lanes, and the passing lane is provided for oncoming vehicles to overtake safely. The head-on collision of vehicles is prevented as the traffic in opposite directions is divided with the safe barrier system, speeding for a long time isn’t permitted, for the 2+1 system is alternately continued with intervals of 2 km each, and the driver is ensured to pay attention to the road. The Sweden model is suggested by international organizations for road sections to not be transformed into speedways, and roads in rural areas. Aforesaid roads have had serious contributions in decreasing traffic accidents in Sweden.102
Practice Example 4. EuroRAP Programme
The European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP) is an international credit-rating non-profit organization and was set up in 1999 taken example by Euro CAP assessing vehicles with safety features and star rating. EuroRAP assessments are conducted in three ways:
Risk Maps: Risk-rating is conducted by sorting roads according to colours by million vehicle-km measure and number of loss of lives..
Performance Monitoring; is to assess the development by following up the measures to decrease loss of lives happening in roads.
Safety Rating: The determination of to what extent does a certain road section provide protection to people inside the vehicle in case of an accident.
The roads are rated between 1 to 4 by pursuant to this assessment. 103
It is considered that the preparation and adoption of a programme similar to the EuroRAP Programme by competent bodies in Turkey, and thus rating the roads will make contributions in many fields involving accident prevention and post-accident interventions.
INFRASTRUCTURE: ROAD AND ROAD PARAMETER
STRATEGIC PURPOSE: Enhancing the Safety Standards of Infrastructure, Road, and Road Perimeter, and Contributing to Traffic Safety
GUIDING STRATEGIES AND SUGGESTIONS
Promoting innovative technologies of the era and information systems, and road transportation services, using energy productively, making use of renewable energy resources maximally and thus damaging the environment minimally, and equipped,
- Realizing noise and air pollution preventing projects within the implementation of environment-friendly road projects, ensuring the limitation of noise level by using specific mixes in road paving,
- Being maximally attentive to taking protective measures against damages (destruction of nature, structuring pollution, and greenhouse gasses) given to the environment in the construction and use of roads,
- Land use planning, traffic planning, technical measures in noise resources, selection of resources causing less noise, preparation of action plans on regulatory and economic quality measures to lower sound broadcasting,
- Developing and implementing projects to secure road engineering structures against all kinds of natural disasters,
- Making necessary regulations necessary to move travel systems from the car travel with negative impacts on environment, economy, and social and causing insufficiency of transportation infrastructure, to types of public transport presenting more productive, economic, and environmental superiority,
- Utilizing up-to-date database in planning, investment, and management decisions on transportation, and ensuring standardization in the collection and publication of data,
- Enhancing the infrastructure standards of roads in the entire road network with the “Self-Expressing Roads” and “Forgiving Roadsides” approach,
- Researching the best practice examples on calming traffic and generating implementation guidelines,
- As part of the recent decisions made by the United Nations on traffic safety, reviewing the safety levels and protectiveness rates of the road infrastructure,
- Adoption of the “Regulation on the Highway Infrastructure Safety Management”, prepared in harmony with the European Union legislation taking account of the European Parliament and Council directive on Highway Infrastructure Safety Management No 2008/96/EC and put into effect by being published in the Official Gazette dated 21.10.2018 and No. 30572, in the TEN-T Comprehensive Highway Network in Turkey, then gradually ensuring its implementation to all intercity roads and urban roads with high traffic volume,
- Accommodating the freight/power balance of vehicles to the EU standards for the economic and safe use of roads,
- Establishing the “Headquarter of Traffic Safety Management”, where the passenger and freight traffic data are collected and evaluated across the country,
- Launching the “Transportation Safety Examination Centre” with an autonomous structure, conducting the accident investigations and researches in association with Insurance Companies, DGH, TNP, Gendarmerie and TUIK,
- Ensuring sustainability in the employment of technical staff expert in their fields, conducting EuroRAP assessments or the Highway Network Safety Management Assessment in upstate roads, and performing evaluations and improvements according to findings,
- Companies providing navigation services to present safe road preferability options such as EuroRAP and considering road safety assessment in selecting roads, to their customers,
- Moving into the 2+1 road system in road sections used by two lanes and traffic in both sides in places with suitable road structure and geographical conditions, and constructing road sections suitable for vehicles to overtake one another safely,
- Constructing the infrastructure in a quality way and in line with the functioning of Advanced Driver Support Systems such as Getting Out of Lane Warning,
- Transforming dangerous intersections into roundabouts, taking necessary protective measures to prevent the vehicle inside the intersection and the one trying to enter the intersection from colliding in lighted and other intersections,
- Promoting ring road and different level intersection practice to ensure uninterrupted flow in places where there are city crossings in the available road network,
- Ensuring the separation of local and transit traffic through practices such as half-access controlled ring roads and different level intersections to be performed in city crossings, and an uninterrupted traffic flow,
- Incentivizing the use of pitches preventing noise, reducing damages the road has given to the environment, measures reducing gas emission, and bicycle roads in cases when the city crossings pass through residential area centres,
- Constructing modern roundabouts perpendicular to the vehicle road axis, where incline surfaces are designed for persons with disabilities and bicyclists at places where pedestrian walks coincide at grade junctions,
- Ensuring the sustainability and mobility of traffic through right turns without waiting, intersections with elevated pedestrian access, and geometrical measures,
- Making efforts to establish dynamic passenger, driver, and pedestrian information systems in the urban transportation network in metropolises,
- Standardizing the transportation management system of all provinces and determining rules and procedures, methodology, and standards to prepare necessary feasibility and work plans for urban transportation plans,
- Making/performing urban road safety examinations/controls for three pilot provinces,
- Accommodating the urban transportation legislation with the National and EU legislation, planning the urban transportation system to ensure the comfort of all citizens (disabled and barrier-free) and variety,
- Accommodating the transportation signs, direction signals, and lighting standards practised in the city to the EU standards,
- Preparing the criteria and perimeters on all kinds of bus stops, roads, and structural solutions within the urban transport systems, and publishing guide documents,
- Preparing, putting into practice, and updating the “City Transportation Master Plan” in headline cities, and transportation master plan for each city, in cities with a population of 500.000 or more, once every five years,
- Dividing the bicycle lane from the vehicle road with physical obstacles such as barriers with the bounds of possibility,
- Building parking lots enabling private vehicle users outside city centres to use public transport upon entering city centres,
- Training technical staff and managers qualified enough for this profession and have necessary skills by perceiving the urban transport regulation as a profession,
- Increasing mobility by constructing divided roads in the available road networks, developing physical-geometrical standards, and using Traffic Safety Measures calming the traffic flow such as AUS,
- Establishing/promoting intelligent transport systems by setting standards, ensuring integration between types by increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of types of traffic,
- Ensuring compliance to road limitations by forming average speed corridors and using mobile radars where necessary,
- Inspecting the road infrastructure systematically and periodically for the identification of high-risk road sections,
- Performing in-depth analysis of all traffic accidents involving death in high-risk road sections, and applying best practice examples in these road sections,
- Developing a methodology to form a risk profile for specific parts of motorway and speedway network,
- Including the forgiving roads minimizing the risk of road users causing accidents in roads in the standardizations and project design of road,
- Maintaining the same efforts to eliminate the accident blackspots in roads and prevent the formation of places with high accident potential,
- Preparing a technical guideline on the improvement of high-risk road sections through low-cost safety measures, and disseminating this guideline to all subunits responsible for the construction, maintenance, and repair of the road,
- Developing and implementing an improvement programme to prevent the accident risk in 20% of the highest risk area of the 10 road corridor travelled most intensely (The determination of highest-risk road sections and most-busily-travelled road corridors should be repeated once every three years),
- Informing the public of the annually improved roads and how many accidents were prevented in these roads in a report,
- The organizations responsible for the construction, maintenance, and repair of the road to make efforts to form the fields of control enabling the control of traffic police in accident blackspots, especially the road sections where accidents due to speeding happen,
- Collecting accurate and reliable accident information through accident reports where the GPS coordinates were accurately identified, and the identity numbers of persons were properly entered,
- Making necessary adaptations in infrastructure works and transportation as the comfort and safety of vulnerable road users (children, persons with disabilities, elderly people, etc.) is important,
- Using the traffic safety technologies developed to protect the vulnerable road users,
- Increasing the measures on the protection of pedestrians in urban and upstate roads by inspecting them,
- Preparing guidelines to create safe zones in school environments,
- Developing student-oriented solutions and specific transportation solutions for university and training institutions, and implementing solutions ensuring means of on-time access at peak hours,
- Preparing and applying guidelines to form safe corridors and spots on the way to school and back,
- Making the public transport systems accessible for persons with limited movement,
- Accommodating vehicle and road design standards to maximum safe speed limits,
- Removing vehicles completing their economic and technical life from the market and scrapping them within the project on removing some vehicles completing their economic and technical life from the traffic to decrease the available spare capacity in the road transportation market and contribute to decreasing environment pollution,
- Promoting the use of assistance systems by preparing digital maps demonstrating the speed limits for the use of “Intelligent Speed Assistance Systems” in vehicles,
- Improving the centres where transportation vehicles and equipment are examined, controlled, and tested for all kinds of means of transport,
- The training, qualification, required qualifications, social security status, working conditions, etc., and control their compliance with AETR Convention and relevant legislative provisions,
- 60. Putting into practice the national legislation prepared in line with the ADR and EU legislations gradually on the transport, control, monitoring, and management of hazardous goods, besides, conducting the transportation of hazardous materials without harming the environment, and the safety of life and property of people based on specific orders and rules,
- . Establishing new control stations across Turkey within the criteria on establishing Highway Control Stations to conduct efficient controls in addition to the available roadside control stations.
