The partners:
East of England Ambulance ServiceEssex County CouncilEssex County Fire & Rescue SeviceEssex PoliceHighways AgencySouthend-on-Sea Borough CouncilThurrock Council

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Casualty Reduction Schemes

Casualty Reductions Schemes are designed to reduce the number of casualties involved in road collisions by changing the behaviour of road users through the creation of a road environment where appropriate speeds are maintained, potential hazards are highlighted and minimised. This work is targeted at: 

  • Collision cluster sites that occur at places such as junctions or bends. In Essex such sites are currently defined as locations where six or more injury collisions have occurred within a 100 metre radius in the last five years.
  •  Routes where the number of collisions and casualties gives rise for concern. Interventions of this type are identified by the number of people killed or seriously injured in a five year period per 100 million vehicle kilometres (that is a measure of risk related to the length of the route and volume of traffic as well as the number of collisions and casualties).
  • Areas where the concentration of collisions and casualties is such that engineering intervention is warranted. Such sites could typically include housing and shopping areas and the type of casualty would tend to be vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.
 
Every year, the team analyse collision data recorded on site by Essex Police to establish where problems exist on our network. This achieved by comparing the data with the results for previous years, allowing the team to identify collision trends and hotspots. 
 
Having identified and prioritised sites for investigation, collision data is then analysed. If the study of collision data, (including details of time/date, location, contributory factors, types of road users and types of vehicles) identifies a causal pattern the site will be subject to more detailed investigation. Site visits will be undertaken; remedial measures will be drawn up and costed. As well as achieving a reduction in casualties from collisions on the highway, the remedial measures selected must be cost effective too. Due to limited resources only the most cost effective schemes will make it into the Casualty Reduction Scheme programme.
 
Every year, the Department for Transport issues a Highways Economic Note, which calculates the cost of a collision to the economy. This calculation is used to determine whether selected measures are a cost effective way of reducing casualties.
 
Examples of possible engineering remedial measures include junction re-alignment, signalisation of junctions, carriageway re-surfacing or signing and lining improvements. For example, at a site where there is a history of vehicles waiting to turn into a side road are suffering rear-end shunt collisions, new advance signs warning of a junction ahead might be installed to alert other drivers of the potential for slow or stationery vehicles ahead.
 
After each Casualty Reduction Scheme has been implemented on the highway, the effect of the work is checked by monitoring the collision statistics before and after the works took place.