Highway Geometric Design from the Perspective of Recent Safety Developments

In a safe-system approach to road safety, problems are dealt with by considering how several components of the road transportation system interact rather than implementing countermeasures in isolation. In this paper, the authors propose that relevant information from the fields of the safe-system approach, including user-centered design and road safety auditing, be integrated into highway geometric design guidelines. A framework is proposed for integrating safety and human factor issues into highway geometric design guidelines. Key issues to be addressed include safety training of highway design engineers, three-dimensional highway design and implementation of a safe system. The safe system approach has already been applied in several states and countries, and has the potential to be implemented in other places.