Implementing a road safety review approach for existing bus stops

Abstract

Road safety inspections are becoming common practice in Europe: the directive 2008/96/EC requires Member States to implement road infrastructure safety management. The Italian Ministry for Transport and Infrastructures published a set of guidelines on road safety audits and inspections. This paper emphasizes the need of implementing safety inspections on peculiar features of the roads network: bus stops. Bus stops are crucial points of the public transport system and they contribute highly to its attractiveness, both in terms of quality, accessibility and safety levels. But, how should bus stops be properly located and designed to ensure safety for their users and, more in general, for all the road users? This paper provides a methodological approach to apply road safety inspections to existing bus stops and to analyse the results. The proposed inspection tool investigates different aspects of the stop, and it represents a preventive safety measure. It aims at analysing the bus stop, at highlighting possible safety threats before an accident takes place, and therefore at prioritising possible interventions. Furthermore, the paper describes how it is possible to handle data collected through the inspections, and how to use a Geographical Information System (GIS) to build an informative layer, and to perform further geo-referenced assessments on the safety, accessibility and quality level of each inspected bus stop. The method was successfully applied to some bus lines in the Province of Brescia (Italy).