An alternative approach to accident analysis and prevention: Road safety audit

Abstract

One of the most common studies in the world within the scope of road safety is the Road Safety Audit. The Road Safety Audit, which was carried out for the first time in England, has been carried out in many countries for more than thirty years. Road Safety Audit basically follows the steps of auditing a road section, determining safety problems, and taking necessary measures. In the Road Safety Audit, analyzes are carried out in the field with the help of various checklists, and the problematic points are tried to be determined. The main topics in the checklists are; general topics, intersections, interchanges, alignment, and cross-section. In addition, road users and road surface issues are also evaluated. Within the scope of this thesis, the accidents that occurred in Ankara between 2016-2019 were examined with the aid of the Geographical Information Systems supported by the Kernel Density method. As a result of the analysis, the Road Safety Audit was carried out for Atatürk Boulevard, where most accidents occurred. In Road Safety Audit; general issues, intersections, interchanges, alignment, cross-section, road user and road surface were inspected. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that Atatürk Boulevard, which was built approximately 100 years ago, is the busiest region of the city and could not meet the traffic demand. In addition, the difference between the design speed and the average speed of the drivers has been found to cause safety problems. Besides, it is determined that advertisement signs are frequent because of being the busiest region of the city and this restricts the view distance. Moreover, some deformations on the road surface have been observed to cause safety problems. Furthermore, it has been determined that the design contains safety problems for disabled individuals and bicycle users. As a result, it was determined that Atatürk Boulevard could not meet the traffic density of today, but with the measures taken, there would be a decrease in the number of accidents.