7. Roles, Responsibilities, Policy Development and Programmes

Key messages

• The government through the road authority has responsibility for the provision of safe infrastructure and safe operation of the road network. In some countries, the road authority also carries out the lead agency function.
• Legislated safety-related roles and responsibilities should be clearly set, and state the Safe System principles the authority seeks to operate under, as well as its strategic objective for implementing a Safe System approach.
• Implementation of a Safe System approach requires a fundamental change in the way the authority addresses safety risk on the network. To support this change management challenge there will be a requirement for structured training.
• Embed in the Safe System approach are processes, procedures, policies, guidelines and tools that are applied to new works, maintenance, operations and retrofitting of the existing network.
• Formalise how the Safe System objectives are considered during project development for safety, traffic management and asset management purposes, as well as operational and cost efficiency.
• Formalise the manner in which a road authority applies its policies to its operations, to include measures of performance against those policies and expected outcomes. (e.g. a network safety management system).
• Acquire or refine legislative powers that provide road authorities, in consultation with the local authority and community, the ability to impose restrictions on access to/from new or existing developments, where these are deemed to be unsafe.