Road infrastructure related safety measures offer a large potential that could be exploited for a significant reduction of road accidents and their consequences. The objective of this project is to collect and to evaluate these approaches in order to make them accessible throughout Europe and to develop tools, which could be used to improve traffic safety. RIPCORD-ISEREST is an acronym for Road Infrastructure Safety Protection – Core-Research and Development for Road Safety in Europe, and Increasing Safety and Reliability of Secondary Roads for a Sustainable Surface Transport.

With these tools RIPCORD-ISEREST intends to give scientific support to practitioners concerned with road design and traffic safety in Europe. Hence, the objective of RIPCORD-ISEREST is to develop best practice guidelines based upon the current research results for:

• Road Safety Impact Assessment tools and Accident Prediction Models
• Road Design and Road Environment
• Road Safety Audit
• Road Safety Inspection
• Black Spot Management and Safety Analysis of Road Network

Furthermore, within RIPCORD-ISERST a special focus is laid on safety interventions for secondary roads, too. In current research projects less attention is paid to the secondary road network even though a large proportion of fatalities in rural areas occur on secondary roads. To fill this gap, RIPCORD-ISEREST will develop a Safety Handbook for Secondary Roads.

The project combines a team of 17 partners from 14 countries covering scientific organisations, road safety institutes, universities, road authorities and private companies. Starting in 2005, the project duration will be three years.

Participation of ARSB in RIPCORD-ISEREST
KfV (Austrian Road Safety Board) takes part in four of a total number of 14 work packages and is also lead contractor in work package 5 (Best practice guidelines on Safety Inspection). The following list gives an overview of KfV participation in RIPCORD-ISEREST

• WP 2: Road Safety Impact Assessment
• WP 4: Best practice guidelines on Road Safety Audit
• WP 5: Best practice guidelines on Safety Inspection (WP lead by KfV)
• WP 6: Best practice guidelines in Black Spot Management and Safety Analysis of Road Networks