Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2006)569 - Road infrastructure safety management - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2006)569 - Road infrastructure safety management. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2006)569  |
| date | 05-10-2006 |
The European Commission announced it would take an initiative on road infrastructure safety in its 2001 White Paper on European Transport Policy for 2010 i and in its Communication on a European Road Safety Action Programme of June 2003. The European Parliament invited the Commission to provide guidelines for high-risk spot management and road safety audits i.
Besides action on the driver and the vehicle, infrastructure should be the third pillar of any comprehensive road safety programme. Physical features of a road network together with associated traffic volumes are important contributing factors to accidents.
Much progress has been made in terms of vehicle safety. Car occupants run a much lower risk of death or injury in case of crash than ten years ago. Test and training requirements have been gradually increased to ensure that European drivers can cope with the dangers of road traffic. Because speeding, non-wearing of seat belts and drink-driving are the main causes of death on European roads, enforcement of traffic rules has been stepped up i.
However, for road safety infrastructure, no such joint effort has yet been carried out at European level, although the legislator called for a high level of safety on roads in the trans-European network Guidelines of 1996. Apart from research and the creation of an internal market for construction products, the European Community has not yet taken necessary action in this field. Progresses in terms of road safety have been registered for the roads equipped with traffic management and control systems based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), but the implementation of ICT tools is not yet systematic.
While the general trend is to decrease budgets for road infrastructure, road users pay more attention to the quality and level of safety of roads. Many road authorities are in a dilemma because they have to provide an infrastructure corresponding to the latest state of safety under budgetary constraints. Road authorities are taken to court by citizens who have suffered injuries in road accidents.
Against this background, the objective of the proposed directive is to ensure that safety is integrated in all phases of planning, design and operation of road infrastructure in the Trans-European Network (TEN-T). It shall ensure that safety is regarded in its own right in parallel with economic and environmental analysis. This directive will ensure that managers of road infrastructure are given the guidelines, training and information required to increase safety in the road network to the best benefits of road users and the public at large. It will:
- increase the safety of new roads through continuous adaptation to the latest safety requirements;
- bring about a common high level of safety of roads in all EU Member States;
- create an awareness for safety in order to achieve informed decisions on planning and design;
- make safety implications of decisions more transparent;
- allow the collection and the distribution of the available expertise in order to better exploit research results;
- use limited funds for more efficient and safer construction and maintenance of roads;
- allow for a better collection, treatment and dissemination of safety-related information.
In 2001 the European Union set itself the ambitious objective of halving the number of fatalities on European roads by 2010 from 50 000 to 25 000. While progress is being made (see Mid Term Review of the 2003 Road Safety Action Plan i), road accidents have still caused 41 500 victims on EU roads in 2005.
Many lives could be saved and many accidents avoided if the existing road infrastructure was managed according to the latest best practice of safety engineering. Action should be taken on a selection of high risk road sections (or black spots) on the basis of local accident records. Unfortunately, today, safety data take too long to reach the authorities in charge of maintaining the road network and taking remedial action.
If roads are usually designed according to a number of criteria such as objectives of urban or regional planning, travel time, user comfort and convenience, fuel consumption, construction cost and environmental impact, safety is often implicitly assumed to be achieved by simply adhering to prescribed standards of alignment and layout. Experience shows that abiding by those standards is not sufficient to avoid hazardous features. Moreover, case studies have shown that more than half of the safety deficiencies resulted from a disrespect of design guidelines and norms i.
Present road layouts result from many decades of construction and maintenance, in a time when safety issues were not always considered to the same extent. Today, several road features no longer meet the latest safety requirements. Moreover, traffic conditions have changed since the road was designed and built.
There are no existing provisions in the area of the proposal.
The objective of the present directive is to ensure that infrastructure makes its contribution to improving road safety and reducing mortality and accidents on the trans-European road network of the Union, as indicated by the European Commission in 2001 in its White Paper on European Transport policy for 2010 and further in its Communication on a European Road Safety Action Programme in 2003.
Consultation of interested parties
Consultation methods, main sectors targeted and general profile of respondents
In order to provide for experts input at an early stage and with regard to transparency policy, the Commission has established a working group on infrastructure safety , which met several times in 2002 and 2003. The results of this Group have influenced the present proposal considerably. 11 Member States participated in this Group and gave detailed advice on the situation and practices in their countries.
From 12 April 2006 to 19 May 2006, the services of the inland transport directorate of the Directorate General for Energy and Transport of the European Commission launched an internet public consultation to call for comments on their approach to road infrastructure safety management and on their initiative to preparing a proposal for a Council and Parliament Directive on this matter. The Commission received 51 responses.
Main conclusions of the working group on infrastructure safety can be summarised as follows:
- All procedures proposed by the Commission in this directive have proven their effectiveness in more than one Member State;
- Several of these countries will have to introduce only minor, but effective, changes or additions to their current practice in order to meet the requirements of the present directive;
- There is a widespread deficit of feedback concerning the effectiveness of the management systems, which makes any improvement on a purely 'best practice' basis ineffective;
- A more coherent regulatory framework is therefore necessary.
Main conclusions of the internet public consultation can be summarised as follows:
- All comments agree on the definition of the problem and on the necessity of an action at European level;
- The proposed measures and instruments are widely recognised as effective;
- A significant number of comments suggest to extend the provisions of the Directive also to roads not part of the trans-European road network;
- The Commission is expected to assist less experienced MS in the implementation of the Directive, providing them with framework to develop methodology and know-how;
- The overwhelming majority of the comments welcome the approach envisaged by the Commission, to leave Member States free to adopt own legislation on a set of mandatory procedures;
Further details of the results of the stakeholder consultation can be found in the Impact Assessment, accompanying this proposal.
The comments sent are available on ec.europa.eu/transport/road/index_en.
Scientific/expertise domains concerned
National governments, road safety research institutes and experts, health, transport and road safety organisations, users and road operators associations.
Public consultation, high level experts consultation, analysis of already existing procedures, conferences and workshops.
51 comments were received:
- 15 from national governments;
- 11 from research institutes and experts in the field of road safety;
- 10 from health, transport and road safety organisations;
- 9 from users associations;
- 6 from road operators’ associations.
The existence of potentially serious risks with irreversible consequences has not been mentioned.
- All comments agree on the definition of the problem and on the necessity of an action at European level;
- The proposed measures and instruments are widely recognised as effective;
- A significant number of comments suggest to extend the provisions of the Directive also to roads not part of the trans-European road network;
- The Commission is expected to assist less experienced MS in the implementation of the Directive, providing them with framework to develop methodology and know-how;
The comments sent are available on ec.europa.eu/transport/road/index_en.Impact assessment
In 2003, the thematic network ROSEBUD i undertook an impact analysis for the present proposal. It found it realistic to estimate the reduction potential for the implementation of the infrastructure safety Directive to the TEN roads to more than 600 fatalities and about 7000 injury accidents per year. For the TEN roads, this corresponds to 12%-16% of fatalities and 7%-12% of injury accidents.
ROSEBUD also estimated that 400 lives per year could be saved if the safety management was applied to motorways, and additional 900 lives could be saved every year if it was applied to the main road network, i.e. interurban roads or national roads (without motorways) i. As a result, the Directive is estimated to reduce the number of fatalities on motorways and main roads by 1.300 every year or 12 % of the fatalities occurring in this part of the network.
3)
Contents
- LEGAL ELEMENTS OF THE PROPOSAL
- BUDGETARY IMPLICATION
- Grounds for and objectives of the proposal
- General context
- Existing provisions in the area of the proposal
- Consistency with other policies and objectives of the Union
- 2) CONSULTATION OF INTERESTED PARTIES AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT
- Summary of responses and how they have been taken into account
- Collection and use of expertise
- Methodology used
- Main organisations/experts consulted
- Summary of advice received and used
- Means used to make the expert advice publicly available
- Impact assessment
- Summary of the proposed action
- Legal basis
- Subsidiarity principle
- Proportionality principle
- Choice of instruments
- 5) ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The present directive explicitly limits the requirements to a minimum set of elements necessary to achieve a safety effect and spread procedures that have shown to be effective. This comprehensive system of road infrastructure safety management i is centring on the following four procedures:
Road safety impact assessments will help strategic decision-making about the safety implications of new roads or major changes of operation of existing roads, especially on the adjacent network.
Road safety audits shall provide for an independent control and recommendations for technical verification of the design of either a new road or a rehabilitation of a road.
Network safety management is to target remedial measures to parts of the network with high concentrations of accidents (high risk road sections or black spots) and/or a high potential to avoid them in the future.
Safety inspections as part of regular road maintenance will allow detecting and reducing in a preventive way risks of accidents through cost-efficient measures.
These procedures already exist and are applied at varying degrees in some Member States. Aim of this proposal for a directive is therefore to extend these measures to the whole of the EU, without defining technical standards or requirements, but leaving the Member States free to keep already existing procedures or to introduce their own. The application of the comprehensive package of measures will make sure that road safety is included and considered in the whole life of a road of European importance, from planning to operation.
The measure is proposed on the basis of Article 71 of the EC Treaty.
The subsidiarity principle applies insofar as the proposal does not fall under the exclusive competence of the Community.
The objectives of the proposal cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States for the following reasons.
The directive will ensure a common high level of safety of roads in all EU Member States. All Member States, but especially new Member States, which are in the process of upgrading and extending their road networks, will be given the opportunity to develop their road networks in full consideration of safety.
Exchange of best practices as a solution to improve road infrastructure safety is not, in itself, sufficient. Indeed, exchange of best practices through research projects, working groups, conferences and workshops has been going on now for several years in the European Union and in the international arena. A general improvement in road infrastructure safety performance could not be registered. Furthermore, Member States needing to upgrade their road safety record are positive about regulatory measures. This is a strong indication that they find best practices insufficient to improve their safety performance.
The trans-European road network needs common and high safety standards throughout the European Union, as acknowledged by the Community legislator itself. Wherever a road user travels on the network, he or she is entitled to the same high level of safety, in line with Article 2, para. 2, lit. a of Council and Parliament Decision 1692/1996 i Without a binding methodology and legal commitment throughout the European Union, Member States alone are not in a position to safeguard this common high level of safety, as the very disparate safety records of the single Member States show.
Community action will better achieve the objectives of the proposal for the following reasons.
The directive will create the basis for establishing safety procedures that will help Europe achieve its ambitious objective to drastically reduce the number of road fatalities in the trans-European network. It will allow road infrastructure safety management to become a comprehensive system based on a thorough analysis of accidents, the identification of risky designs, revised guidelines and training curricula, as well as the implementation of effective remedial measures. It will also mitigate the risk of judicial action against road managers.
The directive will improve the effectiveness of the exchange of best practice by introducing a common basic set of procedural requirements and by promoting and enabling its codification through comitology.
The proposal complies with the proportionality principle for the following reasons.
The present proposal strikes a balance between proposing proven methods for improving road infrastructure safety and limiting administrative and other implementation costs, while respecting the different traditions and instruments in the Member States. The proposal explicitly limits the requirements to a minimum set of elements necessary to achieve a safety effect and spread procedures that have shown to be effective. Aim of this proposal for a directive is therefore to extend these measures to the whole of the EU, without defining technical standards or requirements, but leaving the Member States free to keep already existing procedures or to introduce their own. The application of the comprehensive package of measures will make sure that road safety is included and considered in the whole life of a road of European importance, from planning to operation.
Cost increases will be marginal and often be offset within a short while due to reduced number and cost of accidents as well as reduced costly correction being avoided once roads are in operation. The measures proposed will not create additional delays in the approval procedure and the design process of roads, as safety impact assessment and audits will be undertaken in parallel with them. This directive does not require the creation of any new offices or posts, but relies on a more efficient use of existing resources.
Proposed instruments: directive requiring the adoption of guidelines on infrastructure safety management and leaving the details of their implementation to Member States.
Other means would not be adequate for the following reasons.
Exchange of best practices as a solution to improve road infrastructure safety has been going on now for several years in the European Union and in the international arena. A general improvement in road infrastructure safety performance could not be registered. Moreover, this option does not offer any guarantee that road safety will be further enhanced by Member States. Experience has shown that relying on exchange of best practice alone does not advance the objective of higher road infrastructure safety. Member States most in need of upgrading their infrastructure safety are asking for a structured EC legal approach on this issue, which shows that they have not benefited from exchange of best practices.
The harmonisation of Member States legislation on road safety assessment, audits, management and inspections, would provide common instruments to strengthen safety to maximise the benefit to road users and the public at large. However, obtaining an extended harmonisation would face the opposition of the Member States creating them many obstacles and difficulties:
- most of the Member States would have to reorganise their road safety practices and legislation, even if already adopted and effective;
- the large differences between the already existing road safety approaches would create political conflicts among Member States and the Commission;
- harmonised guidelines would not take into account organisational and socio-cultural differences between the Member States;
- the harmonisation process would require time to be finalised; the consequent number of lives saved would only be appreciated years later and would only partially justify the huge efforts and costs for Member States.
4)
If only applied to the TEN roads, the Directive is estimated to reduce the number of EU citizens dying in this part of the network by more than 600 fatalities per year and the injury accidents by about 7000 per year. According to the monetary estimations of the White Paper, the welfare benefit of these reductions corresponds to more than 2,4 billions € per year. If the Directive will be applied on motorways and main roads, the reduction of fatalities is estimated around 1.300 every year; this corresponds to more than 5 billions € per year. These estimates exceed costs by a considerable factor.
Estimations of the budgetary implications of the four procedures are as following:
- Road Safety Impact Assessment : A rough estimation of the costs for the production of road safety impact assessments can be made considering the costs of the analogous environmental impact assessments (EIA). In general, EIA costs amount to less than 0,5% of the overall capital cost of a construction project. Costs in excess of 1% are the exception. For projects with capital costs in excess of 100 millions of €, EIA costs may be as low as 0,2%, ie 200.000 €.
- Safety audits are performed in parallel with the design and construction process of the road, and are therefore not expected to cause any delay. Audit costs range between 600 and 6.000 € per stage. In general, the estimations in the different countries indicate that audit costs, related to the time spent to complete it, are far less than 1% of the construction cost of the whole project.
- Road safety inspection : Where inspections are carried out on a regular basis, costs range between 600 and 1.000 € per km of motorway. Considering the roads where the Directive will be mandatory, one can estimate that for a large sized country, with about 5.000 km of trans-European road network, this means costs for inspections ranging between 3 and 5 millions of €.
- Network safety management costs can be assumed comparable to costs of routine road safety inspections.
Simulation, pilot phase and transitory period
There was or there will be a transitory period for the proposal.