A Barrier Model for Road Traffic Applied to Accident Analysis

摘要

The concept barrier presently achieves considerable attention in risk management, for instance in nuclear and offshore oil and gas industry. The term is used in slightly different ways, but usually a rather wide definition is applied. ISO 17776 notes that barriers may be physical (shields, materials, protective devices, segregation, etc.) or non-physical (procedures, training, drills, inspection etc.). The present paper is based on an ongoing study for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. The study will apply the barrier concept in the area of road safety, exemplified by head-on and single accidents. An objective is to contribute to a better understanding of how the various factors influence on road safety. An overview of relevant safety barriers is provided as the basis for the approach. The model includes physical and non-physical barriers, as well as risk influencing factors (RIF). Each barrier has a specific function in order to prevent accidents or reduce consequences. The RIFs represents factors that affect the status and efficiency of the safety barriers or the state of the "actors" within the system (i.e. road, driver or vehicle), see Figure 1. This paper indicates how the barrier model will be used to extract information from accident analyses in a systematic way, to systemise and aggregate information from accident investigations and predict the effect of safety measures. The main objective is to be an aid for prioritising risk reducing measures (technical, human or organisational). On the basis of a number of representative accidents analyses, such a prioritising will be suggested.