Operational safety risk management: are you sure your transport project will operate safely?

In an environment of increasing population and economic growth, reduced land availability and limited funding, there is mounting pressure to make the best use of existing transport infrastructure. This may mean, amongst other innovations, introducing technology to manage and operate the network more efficiently, the introduction of mass-transit onto an existing network or reallocating road space (for example converting the emergency stopping lane into a traffic lane). How can a road or transport agency assure the safety of those impacted by these new loperational regimesr? Main Roads Western Australia has taken a process initially developed for evaluating the potential safety risk impacts of managed freeway projects and adapted it for application to multiple transport modes and urban environments. Known as Operational Safety Risk Management it complements traditional road safety audits by focusing on the identification and mitigation of hazards that could occur due to changing the operational environment of the project. These vary according to the complexity of the project and the environment within which it sits. This paper introduces Operational Safety Risk Management and outlines its application on transport projects, focusing on the adaptation of the process for three projects with differing characteristics and levels of complexity.