On Friday 27th February almost 50 people attended a half-day seminar in Nanaimo sponsored by the Vancouver Island ITE section. Two presentations were made, Dr. John Robinson, P. Eng., made a presentation on proposed revisions to the TAC Design Manual that focused on safety issues, and Kelvin Roberts made a presentation focusing on the Insurance Corporation of BC's safety initiatives.
Dr. Robinson's presentation was based on work carried out by the Highway 407 Safety Review committee (see May 1997 issue, Highway 407 Safety Review) and by the committee reviewing and updating the TAC Highway Design Manual. The focus of this work is not only safety, but moving the design process away from a "follow the rule book, pick a value from a table" approach to a more appropriate methodology that requires the Design Engineer to consider all aspects of the proposed road's function and design attributes before using a series of "rules" to determine appropriate values of the various design parameters.
This process, while extremely flexible, should give the Design Engineer a much clearer view of the background to the design decision making process than the current "Design Manuals" or "Standards" in use by the various Provinces, municipalities etc.. The process has been accepted in principle by the Province's representatives on the committee (in the case of BC, this is the Ministry's Chief Highway Engineer, Merv Clark, P. Eng.).
In conjunction with this change in approach, the use of the word "standards" related to design parameters will disappear as there will not be a single "standard" value to be picked in isolation from the functional requirements and other parameters which may influence the outcome of the design. The "rules" that will be developed will link parameters in such a way that changes in one condition or value are reflected through the design. Explicit consideration of "risk" is proposed while this significant parameter is currently buried in the present approach and neither identified or explicitly considered in many designs.
This change will have a consequential impact on the review of designs carried out by others, whether for a "Highway Improvement Project", or as part of a developers submission for access to a highway. In both cases the reviewing agency will have to understand the design assumptions made and their consequences on the highway, not only in terms of traffic capacity, but also explicitly in regard to safety issues. As there will be no "standards" to fall back on, this will place a significant responsibility on the Engineer reviewing the design to ensure that the Road Authority's requirements are both clearly identified, and met by the design.
Some questions posed by this process include an apparent need for significant and long term training for Design Engineers and support staff, the potential liability issues when "we followed the standard" can no longer be used as a defence, and, the apparent shift of responsibility from the Client or Standards setting authority to the Design Engineer implied by the requirement to review and justify every detail of the design and the designers assumptions.
Mr. Robert's presentation focused on projects being undertaken by ICBC in it's effort to minimise the insurance risk through improved roadway design. To achieve this goal, ICBC is becoming involved in the review of safety issues at the planning and design level as well as their previous initiatives related to assisting Road Authorities identify, plan, design and construct "spot" improvements to correct preexisting problem areas. For example, on the Highway 1 Corridor Study from Kamloops to the Alberta Border, the "Safety Review" component is being managed by ICBC as a "pilot project" in conjunction with MTH. The role of safety issues in relation to design for development access from the highway was also discussed. This key area has been down-played in the past, yet it can have a significant impact on both capacity and safety.
Another aspect of safety related issues discussed was the role of accident costs in "multiple account analysis". In this instance, the cost of providing "safety" measures can be assessed for effectiveness by the amount projected to be saved from reduced accident costs by the use of the measure.
With an increased emphasis on safety in road design it is quite clear that safety needs to be explicitly examined in the earlier planning and project development phases before problems are introduced which then have to be resolved, often at significant cost, at the design level. The forthcoming major project planning initiatives in the GVRD area will likely be subject to this kind of review.
Both presentations noted that with the current design philosophy, "Safety Audit's" like the Highway 407 process, while necessary now, should not be in the future as these concerns will have been explicitly covered in the design process, and will have been clearly documented for review and approval by the Road Authority's Engineers .