Effectiveness of road safety measures taken By LGED on rural roads of Bangladesh

Abstract

In this study an attempt has been made to evaluate the effectiveness of the road safety measures (mainly focused on traffic signs & markings) taken by Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) on rural roads of Bangladesh. The study comprises of eight rural roads (UZR and VR) in eight Upa-zilla of four districts in different geographic locations of Bangladesh.

To evaluate the effectiveness, firstly assessment was made on the level of understanding of road users (drivers and pedestrians) on the road signs and markings. Secondly, the uniformity and consistency of installed signs and markings was checked with that of standard BRTA signs and markings. Finally, functionality was evaluated by undertaking before-after analysis of installed safety measures and calculating its associated benefit-cost ratio.

For the evaluation of perception and level of understanding of traffic signs and road markings, self-administered questionnaire-type survey instruments were developed using selected signs and markings which are more prevalent and relevant for rural road traffic condition. To examine the uniformity deficiency of traffic sign and markings, a checklist was developed considering the physical standard dimensions & attributes (viz. shape, size, colour, sign, material etc.), horizontal & vertical positions (viz. location & height), use of appropriate sign/marking as well as maintenance practice of sign & markings etc. Data were collected by engaging field surveys along the selected roads.

To evaluate the safety measures w.r.t. before-after accident analysis, the control site technique has adopted in the study. In each survey district, one control road was selected carefully with almost similar road traffic characteristics and without having any safety intervention measures. In the absence of accident statistics for before scenario, initiative was taken to collect accident records by conducting household/shops survey along 500m strip on both sides of selected road alignment. Two years accident data was collected for before-after accident analysis.

From the study, it is observed that among the 253 nos. respondents, overall level of understanding of rural road user about traffic control devices is 42%. It essentially suggests that a majority of rural road users are indifferent of traffic sign and markings. Understanding of ‘Regulatory and Warning Signs’ are found to be 41% & 43% respectively. It is observed that the road users in rural setting have little idea about road markings, which is only 22%. Among the officials of LGED the executing agency, overall level of understanding on the selected traffic control devices is found only 56%.

Among, a total 324 nos. of existing traffic sign sample observed, only 13% complied with the standard dimension and 39% complied with colour and locational position. The misuse and abuse of traffic signs were also found frequent. This definitely revealed that there is a shear deficiency in maintaining uniformity in design and application of traffic signs by LGED. Moreover, as per MUTC (USA) and BRTA Traffic Signs Manual, the traffic control devices should be maintained at high standard, but field observation revealed that virtually there is no maintenance initiative by the implementation agency and thereby most of the cases signs were found to be in unusable condition. This prompted that the culture of ‘install-forget-reinstall’ should be replaced by ‘install and continuous monitoring’ approach for ensuring sustainable development of safer road infrastructures of Bangladesh. With respect to ‘before-after’ accident analysis, out of eight roads under this study, four roads have found no tangible impact of safety intervention. Other four roads have benefit-cost ratio greater than 1 with the maximum value is 18.13observed for Islampur HQ–Jhagrarchar GC road and the minimum value is 1.43 for Baghopara NHW–Ghoradhap GC road.

Finally, based on the findings of this study, a number of recommendations have been made for improving effectiveness of safety intervention measures on rural roads of Bangladesh.