Appendix 1 - Assessment Criteria for Road Safety Requests
Perth and Kinross Council · 20 September 2023
Back to Environment, Infrastructure and Economic Development Committee — 20 September 2023 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Appendix 1 9 Assessment criteria for road safety requests (As agreed by E&I Committee – 20 March 2019) – with Proposed Amendments (in italics) Each of the criteria will be assessed using a weighting system with a higher number of points being assigned on the basis of severity or presence of hazards Collisions The Council maintains a database containing all reported road traffic collisions supplied by Police Scotland. All road collision within the curtilage of each site, or within 100m on adjoining roads, during the previous five calendar years will be reviewed. The base-line assessment period will be from 2013 to 2017. After three years, the base-line will be updated and all collision and casualty data reviewed and adjusted accordingly. Each collision is adjusted by severity which is based on the highest category of casualty – 1 point for slight, 3 points for serious and 5 points for fatal. Police Scotland does not provide reports on damage-only incidents. At sites where there is evidence of damage-only, non-injury collisions on the ground, a value of 1 point will be added to the Collision category in the assessment criteria. Casualties An assessment factor is included for road casualties based on severity – 1 point will be added to the Casualty category for each person slightly injured, 3 points for each person seriously injured and 5 points for each fatality. Perceived risk is not included in the assessment criteria as it is not quantifiable. Road Environment The road environment is based on the activity around the site. Assessment factors are included for both physical layout and land use. Physical layout includes features on the road network such as a junction or bridge, and hazards adjacent to the public road such as a river or rock face. Examples of land use are housing, retail, commercial, industrial and community facilities such as schools or public parks. 1 point will be given to the road environment category for each environmental feature up to a maximum of 4 points. This is to ensure that town centre locations with mixed-use are not over represented. Road Alignment Poor road alignment affects visibility splays, stopping sight distance and vehicle speeds. Assessment factors for the road alignment category include 1 point each for poor or limited horizontal and vertical alignment where crests or bends affect the road layout.
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School Travel Plan All schools in Perth and Kinross are encouraged to produce a School Travel Plan. These plans record the various modes of transport to and from school, and help to identify any limitations in the built environment, particularly for vulnerable road users such as child pedestrians and cyclists. Each scheme will be allocated a score for connection to a school or campus – 1 point will be given to the School Travel Plan category if the project links to a school and 2 points if the project is in the immediate vicinity of the school. Sustainable Transport Each project will be scored for a sustainable transport connection – 1 point each will be given to the Sustainable Transport category if the scheme provides a link for pedestrians, cyclists, car and bus or rail transport up to a maximum of 4 points. Community Input Prior to the commencement of new financial year, Community Councils (where they exist) will be provided with the Road Safety Projects database and asked to prioritise individual projects within their Community Council area, which have the same cost/benefit ratio, using a score of 1 to 5. (5 being the highest). This scoring will be used for the purposes of differentiating between those projects with the same cost/benefit ratio and will inform officers and councillors, which projects Community Councils consider more important within the same cost/benefit ratio. The scoring would not however affect the cost/benefit ratio of any project or re-prioritise any project above any which have a greater cost/benefit analysis. Cost The cost of the scheme to be constructed has a direct bearing on the viability of the project. With limited financial resources, cost must be a consideration for all works. Nonetheless, if need has been clearly established, cost should not be a critical assessment criteria. It should be noted that for the purposes of the prioritisation, the cost is the cost to PKC. Therefore, if a potential project was to be funded or partly funded from elsewhere this may impact on the scheme’s priority by potentially raising the Benefit Cost Ratio. Land Availability Land availability should not be an assessment criteria if need for the scheme is identified. Priority will be given to those sites where the works can be accommodated within the existing road boundary and the scheme can be delivered within an agreed timeframe. Schemes where land is currently available, and there are no anticipated site complications, will be marked in green on the assessment table. Sites where land is available but which
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require additional construction work, such as retaining features or alterations to services, will be shown in amber. Schemes which require additional land outside the road boundary will be highlighted in red. It will be necessary to negotiate land transfer before any of these schemes can be constructed. An estimated construction cost cannot be entered against these projects until the amount of land required to complete the scheme is calculated. Benefit Cost Ratio A Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) will be used as an indicator to rank the overall value for money of the proposed projects, by dividing the total benefits by the estimated costs.