Road safety audit effectiveness at urban junctions

Abstract

In accordance with the Road Safety National Plan recently adopted in Italy and the initiatives subsequently undertaken by the National Infrastructure and Transport Department, this paper contains proposals for implementing an urban road safety audit in Italy, Our research will aim at evaluating the possible effects of such a practice. Our more specific aim is to determine the real or potential risk on roads by examining road infrastructure and observing road user behaviour in the absence of accident data. Four urban junctions, situated on one of the main thoroughfares of urban traffic in Palermo, were studied and a comparison was made between the data obtained by observing road user behaviour and that, which would have been supplied by expensive accident data analysis.