Black Spot Program: Australia

Abstract

Australia’s Black Spot Program understands the holistic approach to road safety and aims to combat it by studying trends in driver and collision behavior. High-risk locations, referred to as high hazard, hazardous, or black spots, are identified. Accordingly, black spot projects are road improvement treatments that focus on reducing the number of casualties at these particular locations on a road network through the most cost-effective means. Typically, Black Spot Programs focus on reduction factors such as fixed roadside objects that infringe on traffic lanes (large trees, bridge abutments, poles, etc.), unsealed shoulders, high traffic volumes and minimal traffic control, poor visibility, and pedestrians (strip shopping centers, school crossings, school bus drop-off points, etc.). Evaluations of the program’s effectiveness were based on a before and after assessment of black spot treatment. Comparing the history of a crash site after treatment with the expected crash history if no treatment was applied, the cost-benefit standard the Black Spot Program was found to have generated a net value of $1.3 billion. And overall, the program is estimated to have prevented 32 deaths and 1539 serious injuries due to crashes spanning 3 years. This translates into reduction of casualty crashes by 31% in capital cities and 48% in regional areas.

Appendices

BRIO Model: Black Spot Programs

Group Served: All individuals on the road (motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians).

Goal: To identify hazardous (black spot) road locations that have resulted in collisions and improve roads to reduce the number of casualties.

Background	Resources	Implementation	Outcome
Understands that changing driver behavior is implausible and therefore engineering improvements must be made for injury prevention efforts Adopts a holistic approach to road safety—in that many aspects of human behavior and the environment interact in order to create dangerous roads First Black Spot Program in Australia started in 1990—now known as the Federal Road Safety Black Spot Program “Black spot” defined as an area where at least three or more casualty crashes within 3 years have occurred	The Federal Office of Road Safety (FORS) administers the Black Spot Program on behalf of the federal government State road and transport agencies manage individual programs with specific areas First 4 years of the program, the federal government spent $145 million From 2013 to 2022, the federal government will spend approx. $800 million	Identification of black spots is successful by understanding crash history, statistical data, and local knowledge from individuals Black spot programs focus on reduction factors in order to reduce the number of casualties at a particular location through the most cost-effective means Factors including fixed roadside objects, high traffic volumes, poor visibility, and pedestrians and are combated through funding measures like traffic signals and roundabouts to reduce risk of collision	The program continues to be implemented and funded by the Australian federal government for 30 years In the first 3 years, it is estimated 32 deaths and 1539 serious injuries were prevented

Life-Space Model : Black Spot Programs

Sociocultural: civilization/community	Interpersonal: primary and secondary relationships	Physical environments: where we live	Internal states: biochemical/genetic and means of coping
Federal initiative yet community-based intervention through reporting of potential black spots Involvement of government and legislative bodies (the Bureau of Transport Economics, federal, state, and territory governments)	Changes how individual drivers respond to safety implements shared by all drivers (new signals, new roundabouts, sealed shoulders, etc.)	Engineers evaluate the road network and bring about physical changes These changes include removing large trees, fixing bridge abutments, poles, etc., sealing shoulders, increasing visibility	Removes the sole responsibility from the driver for casualty crashes to a marriage of driver/road condition