Hazard-Rating Scores for Prioritization of Accident-Prone Sections on Highways

Various techniques are available for monitoring, improving, and assessing safety needs on the total road network. These techniques generally include procedures that look subjectively at the standards of road safety being achieved and maintained by road-controlling authorities over their total road networks. Accident reduction studies, audits of compliance with specific standards, and highway safety management strategies have been progressively developed during the past decade; although these contribute to the overall improvement of the provision of safety elements of the road network, a quantifiable technique to undertake an audit of the result has not been available. Road safety audits are concerned with the safety of all road users—motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists—and are to be conducted for all projects, regardless of size or type. A comprehensive road safety audit was conducted on State Highway 17 in Karnataka in India, which links Bangalore and Mysore. On the basis of the road safety audit, an attempt was made to develop hazard - rating scores for a 23-km stretch of the highway. From the hazardrating scores, a hazard ratio was also derived; it gives an indication of the safety performance of individual kilometer sections with respect to the overall average. The hazard ratio can hence be used to prioritize the sections in the stretch for improvement to enhance the overall safety of the highway.