Development of a safety risk model for the highways agency road network

The Highways Agency (HA) operates the network of motorways and trunk roads in England. Following decades of demonstrable improvements in road safety, driven mainly by reactive studies aimed at identifying and treating accident cluster sites, the HA is now moving to a more proactive, risk based approach to safety management. To support this, the HA recently commissioned the development of a Safety Risk Model (SRM). This is a computer-based model that aims to address all reasonably foreseeable safety risks associated with the operation, maintenance and improvement of the HA network. This includes safety risks to: · Road users · HA Traffic Officers · Supply chain workers The paper presents the background to the development and intended use of the SRM, an overview of the SRM itself and some example results and analyses. The paper concludes with observations relating to the main benefits that the SRM has provided to date and a summary of the future aims for its implementation and further development.