Dr Suzy Charman, Road Safety Foundation
- Is £450m enough to fix dangerous roads?
We are quite confident it is enough to put in the cost effective (higher BCR than about 4 or 5) remedial road safety measures on all of the persistently higher risk and unacceptably high risk (high or medium-high risk) A roads and motorways that we identified in our annual risk mapping work. Our analysis does not cover roads beyond motorways and A roads however. - What is the value of prevention in monetary terms as a result of funding secured for dangerous roads? i.e. how much will be saved long-term from the investment?
We estimate that the Present value of the investment is £550 million for the initial £100 million capital investment (£125 million once you factor in refreshing the measures etc.). - Is the funding secured enough to fix the most dangerous roads?
See Q1. - Does the quality of the road markings have an effect on the star rating system?
Absolutely. We aren’t able to get into much granularity with this in the iRAP assessment – delineation is either adequate or inadequate but this does have an impact on the star rating score that is then banded to produce the 5 star rating bands. That said, I am not sure that just improving delineation would push you over the next boundary unless you were near to a boundary already. Though I would say that measures like raised rib edgelines or improved delineation are amongst the most cost effective that we have – giving the greatest returns for the level of investment required. - How much of the total length of road in the UK have 0 or 1 star rating?
Sadly we haven’t had the opportunity to Star Rate the whole of the UK network. We have bits of local authority A road that we have star rated. The majority of these are 1 or 2 star. We have Star Rated the whole of the Strategic Road Network, however I am unable to share these results ahead of publication.
- Fantastic news to have a fund for road safety measures on both moral and financial grounds. However, how do we ensure the maintenance of road safety schemes?
Well this is a very good question indeed and one that was a great concern for the local authorities that participated in the Safer Roads Fund project. I have no answers here!