What Is Road Safety Audit (RSA)

A road safety audit is a systematic and proactive approach to checking the road safety implications. It could be done for a proposed road or an already existing road. The road safety audit is commonly done in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, mainly by a team of competent professionals, which could include highway safety engineers, highway design engineers, law enforcement, etc.

Road Safety Audit is a formal safety performance examination of an existing road, future road, or intersection, which qualitatively estimates and reports on potential road safety issues and identifies opportunities for improvements in safety for all road users; it takes into account all road users.

Key focus areas include:

• Design elements (geometry, sight distance, lane widths)

• Traffic control and signage

• Pedestrian and cyclist accommodation

• Intersection layout and crossings

• Roadside environment (guardrails, slopes, obstructions)

Why RSAs Matter: The Rationale and Real-World Impact

1. Proactive vs. Reactive Approach: Conventional traffic safety studies often react to crash data. With RSAs, the emphasis is on prevention—spotting hazards before collisions occur. For instance, an audit on Newport’s Coddington Highway recommended restriping to a three-lane section with bike lanes, resulting in improved safety and reduced crash frequency.

2. Multidisciplinary Insight: RSAs must involve diverse experts—traffic engineers, urban planners, police, and human-factors specialists—to ensure holistic safety perspectives. Independence from design teams is crucial to fostering unbiased, objective insight.

3. Cost-Benefit Excellence: Audit recommendations often pay for themselves. In Germany and Austria, benefit/cost ratios ranged from 4:1 to 99:1, and benefits sometimes exceeded 50× the cost. The UK saw ratios up to 242:1 during the initial design stages.

4. Enhancing Safety for Vulnerable Users: Modern RSAs explicitly incorporate Safe System frameworks, focusing on pedestrian, cyclist, transit, and motorized safety holistically. Countries like the U.S., U.K., Australia, and New Zealand mandate such audits in major roadway projects.

5. Community Trust and Transparency: Because audits involve public agencies, law enforcement, community leaders, and NGOs, they encourage accountability, particularly in high-crash corridors or disadvantaged communities.

Benefits of Road Safety Audit

It is used to identify road safety problems and to suggest measures to eliminate or mitigate any concerns. It aims to ensure that operational road safety experience is applied during the design and construction process to reduce the occurrence and severity of accidents. It also helps fill a vital role in checking that the road has been designed and built to the highest safety standards.

In carrying out this audit, two important questions should be asked:

• Who could be hurt if a collision occurs on this part of the road, and how could that happen?
• What can be done to either reduce the potential for that collision or reduce its consequences?

One of the important aspects of Road Safety Audit is that it tends to ensure that operational road safety experience is considered during the design and construction process; it also fulfills a vital role in checking that roads have been designed and built to the highest safety standards.

Types and Stages of Road Safety Audits

Audit Types by Project Phase

There are three core RSA types:

1. New construction/project audits – Held at feasibility, preliminary/design, and construction stages

2. Existing-road audits – Evaluate operational safety on current corridors

3. Thematic audits – Focus on targeted issues (e.g., pedestrian safety, school zones)

Timing is Everything

• Feasibility phase: Allows early removal of critical hazards

• Preliminary and detailed design phases: Enables design improvement before high-cost construction

• Construction phase: Ensures safe work zones (aka WZRSA)

• Post-construction audits: Verify that measures perform as intended in real-life

Benefit–cost ratios are highest during the early stages—i.e., pre-construction.

Essential Elements Of The Road Safety Audit

The essential elements of a road safety audit are the audit:

• Should focus on the safety aspects of the project
• Should be carried out by people who are independent of the client, designer, or contractor.
• It should be carried out by people with appropriate experience and training.
• It should be a formal and documented process.
• The Audit should consider all potential road users
• This should require a formal documented response from the client.

Road Safety Audit Planning Conditions

Some conditions have to be met before a road safety audit is done, some of the conditions are:

1. Timing of the RSA: The timing depends on the objective of the RSA. For instance, Pre-Construction RSAs can be conducted during the planning and design stages to identify potential safety issues before construction begins while RSA during Construction ensures that safety measures are implemented correctly. So timing can make or mar the process.
2. Scope of the Audit: You cannot plan a good RSA if you haven’t drawn out the scope. The scope will specify the elements to be assessed (e.g., intersections, road segments, pedestrian facilities) and other areas to be covered.
3. Assemble an Audit Team: Since RSA is done by experts, you need to pick your audit team painstakingly if you need expertise and professionalism. The team should naturally have experts in road design, traffic engineering, road safety, and other relevant fields.
4. Follow the Audit Stages: Audit is done in stages if you must have an effective report. The stages include:

•  Pre-Construction Audit: This is Conducted before construction to identify potential safety concerns.
•  Audit During-Construction: This phase focuses on verifying that safety measures are being implemented as designed.
• Post Construction Audit: Here, the audit team examines the scheme from the point of view of all road users, and is carried out during daylight hours and during the hours of darkness so that hazards particular to night operation can be identified.

Other Road Safety Audit Planning Conditions

• Use established safety standards and guidelines as criteria for evaluating the road or intersection.
• Involve relevant stakeholders, including traffic engineers, road designers, local authorities, and the community.
• Collect relevant data, including traffic volumes, historical crash data, and other pertinent information.
• Document the findings, recommendations, and any identified safety issues thoroughly. Include photos, diagrams, and maps.
• Assess the level of risk associated with identified safety issues and prioritize them based on severity.
• Provide clear and practical recommendations for improving road safety. These recommendations should be feasible and cost-effective.
• Establish a process for monitoring the implementation of recommendations and conduct follow-up audits to assess the effectiveness of implemented measures.
• Communicate the findings and recommendations to relevant stakeholders, including the project team, local authorities, and the public.

Road Safety Audit consultants are people or groups of persons who are experts in the field of Road Safety Audit (RSA). Within the scope of this article, we will mention a few RSA consultants in the United States and Australia.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored mention; it is just a guide for our esteemed readers. Thank you

Road Safety Audit Consultants in the United States

1. Safety Consultants USA

Address: 8100 Roswell Rd Suite 410, Atlanta, GA 30350, United States

Website: http://www.safetyconsultantsusa.com/

Contact number: +18777237622

2. AIST Safety Consulting

Address: 3333 Warrenville Rd STE 280, Lisle, IL 60532, United States

Website: https://aistsafety.com/

Contact Number: +13123730895

3. Roadsafe LLC

Address: 12 Main St, Canton, ME 04221, United States

Website: https://www.roadsafellc.com/

4. U.S. Safety and Compliance Team LLC

Road Safety Audit Consultants in Australia

Conclusion

A road safety audit is far more than a box-checking process—it’s a transformative safety instrument that improves design, meets stakeholder expectations, and saves lives. With proven ROI, regulatory alignment, and global adoption, RSAs should be an integral part of any road project, new or existing.

As a Road Safety Consultant, I’ve witnessed how early identification of hazards—whether through a simple lane realignment or improved lighting—can dramatically reduce incidents. Governments and agencies are ignoring the RAS risk of billions in economic losses and untold human suffering.

Let’s champion RSA best practices and embrace continuous safety improvements—because every road user deserves a safer journey.

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