Initial development of psychological road audits: Combining human factors, safe design and traffic psychology

Background: Road safety audits are becoming increasingly important around the world. They are often used to assess a new road before it is opened to the public, or to audit an existing highway. Aims: Whilst traditional road audits are of critical importance, it is hypothesized that a driver-centred approach by means of 'psychological road audits' could be beneficial for the safe road design process. The aim of this ongoing research is to develop a psychological road auditing process. Method: The methodology being developed currently consists of three main components. Firstly, a naturalistic driving study, in which participants drive along the road being audited. Secondly, experimenters perform an analysis of the main driving tasks: These are decomposed into sub-tasks. Finally, a workshop with some of the drivers used in component 1: This identifies risks for each sub-task by means of a participatory ergonomics process, current controls employed are noted, road design deficiencies are identified and user-centred design improvements are developed. Results: The project is a new Australian-Spanish-UK collaboration. Initial data have been collected using a newly-opened highway in Granada, Spain: This road had a mixture of driving tasks, such as intersections and multi-lanes, plus has a comparatively high accident rate. To date, a range of experienced and novice drivers have driven the 10km route and had their verbal responses recorded. Conclusion: This research is still in its early stages. However, the approach used here, of providing a structured means of driver-centred safe highway design is producing potentially valuable results.