Delivery of Local Road Safety

The Department for Transport commissioned AECOM, in association with the Tavistock Institute, to design and deliver a three-year independent evaluation of the delivery of local road user safety. The evaluation was commissioned to consider the following objectives:
• To evaluate the different strategies and plans for delivering road user safety;
• To assess what is being delivered, the key processes and how efficient local authority practices are; and
• To identify lessons and areas of good practice in road user safety investment.

The main findings are:
• To engender attitude and behaviour change, road safety education/training/publicity practitioners are increasingly considering both the characteristics of the groups being targeted and the context within which their interventions are being delivered (e.g. areas of social deprivation).
• Benefits in the design and effectiveness of interventions have been generated by considering both the intended and potential unintended outcomes of investment during the planning/scoping stage. Logic mapping is an example of techniques that can be used by local authorities, in a group or workshop setting, to collate the knowledge and inputs from cross-department. DfT guidance prepared by members of the evaluation team is available to guide authorities (Logic Mapping: Hints and Tips for Better Transport Evaluations, DfT 2010).
• There is clear evidence that strong links have been established between road safety and planning departments, facilitating proactive area-wide treatments. The Road Safety Audit process and principles are seen by authorities as good practice, guiding the delivery of new development infrastructure.
• Local road user safety interventions and plans continued to be successfully delivered at a range of organisational and geographical levels. This included inter-county publicity campaigns targeting motorcyclists through to site-specific engineering improvements. Improved delivery efficiency and effectiveness had also been achieved for school-based investment, through multi-agency collaborative working. Examples included the collaboration with education departments, and the use of joint funding for school travel plan advisors and sustainable transport promotion.
• Reductions in casualty numbers have made cluster-based analysis more difficult, encouraging practitioners to take a more holistic approach to safety planning.