Road safety screening for greater safety on the roads of Baden-Wuerttemberg
The goal could not be clearer: By 2020, 40 percent fewer people should die on roads in Baden-Wuerttemberg compared with 2010 as part of a major step toward achieving “Vision Zero.” To this end, the state ministry of transport has developed a safety concept in which road safety screening plays a key role. This type of screening process is unprecedented in Europe. The process identifies accident blackspots so that efficient optimization measures can be initiated. Road safety screening is also an ideal tool for the 150 accident commissions in Baden-Wuerttemberg that helps them to prepare and follow up visits to the scene of an accident.
On a platform jointly designed with traffic consultancy company DTV-Verkehrsconsult, all information relevant to road safety work is interpreted in a uniform way and the results are displayed on theme-based maps. Relevant information includes accident data, traffic volumes and vehicle speeds based on regular vehicle monitoring operations at counting stations – of which there are now 5,000 in the state – road geometry, road condition and photos of routes covered. All of the information is gathered to create theme-based fact sheets for short stretches of road, usually 100 meters in length. Depending on the severity of the accident, the road sections are marked in green, yellow or red. The fact sheets form the common basis for the analysis of accident causes and corrective measures and contain up to 700 items of data.
In addition, network evaluations and special inspections that analyze individual accident types or vehicle types separately are conducted to make it easier to establish the content of road safety projects. For example, specific categories include swerving off the road and colliding with an obstacle, accidents involving trucks, motorbike accidents and accidents in flowing traffic. An online prioritization tool was also developed that enables boundary conditions of accidents to be weighted individually and ranked so that the most critical points relating to a particular matter can be identified and marked in just a few minutes. This ranking system enables the budget available for improving the road infrastructure to be utilized where the need is greatest and so improve road safety over the long term.