The Post-Mortem of Road Safety Audit Stage 5

Abstract

The Road Safety Audit (RSA) stage 5 is a proactive measure taken by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) to improve the level of road safety along existing roads in Malaysia. Since 2008, MIROS has conducted 208 cases of RSA stage 5, and for this study, only 68 of RSA cases were chosen as samples for a desktop study. Apart from desktop analysis, eleven of previous RSA cases were chosen based on a selection criterion to be revisit. The aim of this study is to identify common deficiencies extracted from the RSA Stage 5 reports and assess the successfulness of all the recommendations proposed in the RSA-Stage 5 reports. Based on the analysis conducted from 68 RSA reports, the most common issues reported in the RSA stage 5 reports along expressway are related to access point deficiencies, for non-expressways, visual aid deficiencies issues are generally being observed (27.4%) while for signalized and un-signalized junction, issued related to geometry layout deficiencies are the most common (24.0% - 27.8%). Proper and appropriate visual aid was proven effective to reduce the speeding issue. It was strongly suggested that visual aid be given high priority countermeasure in Malaysia. We see that road authorities are willing to rectify any road deficiencies if budget for road maintenance or upgrading and the cost to conduct RSA Stage 5 are allocated. MIROS or other road safety agencies/bodies need to engage the road authorities strategically and effectively by assisting them on identifying the risky location and planning for road maintenance and upgrading budget before proceeding with the RSA Stage 5 in the future.