Secondary roads in Europe – challenges and opportunities for progressing road safety

Abstract

Following the publication of Directives 2008/96/EC and 2019/1936/EC, Europe-an Union (EU) Member States (MS) developed a comprehensive set of road infrastructure safety management (RISM) procedures that are applied to all roads which are part of the Trans-European Road Network (TEN T), all motorways and primary roads, and to EU funded interurban roads with full access control. These roads carry the bulk of traffic volumes in the EU. This paper clarifies the notion of ‘secondary roads’, as those interurban roads falling outside the scope of RISM Directive. The main characteristics of both the crash occurrence phenomenon and traffic system operation on secondary roads from three EU MS are highlighted and consequences regarding safety management are extracted. Sources for viable good practice interventions for improving safety on these roads are presented, and the potential contribution from Connected and Intelligent Transport System (C-ITS) is discussed, taking into consideration the opportunities and limitations posed by this road category.