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eBook description
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The eBook is an interactive tool for road designers, road administrators and safety experts gathering road infrastructure countermeasures to be applied according to different accident scenarios.
Its objectives are the following ones:
  • Provide a set of accident scenarios in order to propose specific infrastructure countermeasures for each one.
  • Enable an interactive countermeasures search engine for road designers and administrators.
  • Provide a ranking of the most cost - effective countermeasures for interurban roads (double and single carriageway roads).

The eBook can contribute to improve the decision process when proposing modifications in existing road sections or when designing new stretches. For instance, the results of a road safety inspection can detect that there are some accident scenarios that are frequent in a rod section and are related to road infrastructure. With the description of those scenarios (keywords and scenarios) and the road section, the designer can look for the existing countermeasures in the eBook and can also look for more information as each countermeasure is accompanied by literature references.

Urban situations for vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists), interurban accident in motorways as well as those occurring in interurban single carriageway roads are tackled in the eBook. Therefore, this eBook covers road sections where the majority of the fatalities and serious injuries occur nowadays. The eBook includes active road safety measures (aimed at avoiding road traffic accidents) and also passive safety measures (aimed at decreasing the severity of the accidents).

The information included in the eBook is updated until January 2008 and is recommended to be used accompanied by road safety inspections to road sites, analysis of the previous accident data and study of the possible regional or national constraints due to standards or regulations. Accident scenarios present a set of common characteristics for accidents occurring in similar locations. Nevertheless, each road section may present specific details, although being included in one of the accident scenarios, that deserve specific attention with the above mentioned road safety tools.

The RANKERS consortium also recommends to apply the eBook after analysing the road sections with the Road Safety Index, a methodology developed by the RANKERS project to assess the safety status of road infrastructure and the characteristics of the road infrastructure that should be improved.