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ITEM EX17

SPEED MANAGEMENT POLICY

1. Speed management is a fundamental part of the Government’s road safety strategy "Tomorrow’s Roads: Safer for Everyone". Research has shown that about one third of all road accidents have speed as a major contributory factor. This means that inappropriate or excess speed helps to kill or injure around 1,100 people in Oxfordshire each year. This report recommends the development of a hierarchy of roads for speed management to help alleviate this problem.

Background

2. The County Council already adopts a proactive approach to speed management and, as members will be aware, the Council is nearing the end of the 30mph project to provide 30mph limits for all Oxfordshire settlements where they are supported by local communities. It is now proposed to build on this approach and develop a policy for the implementation of a wider range of speed limits for both the rural and urban road network.
3. National government is also focusing on speed management for rural roads and have commissioned Babtie Ross Silcock (a specialist division within the Babtie Group) to produce a report on the development of a hierarchy of roads for rural speed management. Babtie Ross Silcock’s progress report of October 2001 which was released recently, suggests that one approach would be to develop a three-tier hierarchy (excluding motorways). A full copy of the progress report has been placed in the Members Resource Centre and a summary of this draft hierarchy, together with suggested limits for different road environments, is shown in the table in Annex 1.

Proposals

4. It is proposed to build on the work undertaken by Babtie Ross Silcock and use a similar approach to develop a draft three-tier hierarchy for all Oxfordshire’s roads, both urban and rural, therefore encompassing the use of urban 20mph zones and limits. Babtie Ross Silcock have recognised the legal and practical difficulties with implementing speed limits based on this hierarchy and it may not be possible to achieve a countywide system in advance of changes to national legislation. However, it is hoped that by undertaking this work at this stage it would enable the County Council to make early progress on a wider range of limits that will be compatible with any national system that results from their work.
5. The County Council currently has a term consultancy with Babtie and therefore it is proposed to use Babtie Ross Silcock to develop a draft hierarchy for Oxfordshire and to assign the County's roads to this draft hierarchy, in partnership with officers. Thames Valley Police will be invited to contribute to the development of the hierarchy to ensure that any enforcement issues are taken into account.
6. There will be a need to take account of the work being carried out by Halcrow, the new transport planning term consultant, as part of the Transport Networks Review (TNR). It is likely that the TNR will identify the need for a series of improvements to County Roads and there may be a need for some interim speed management proposals until this work can be completed.
7. The draft hierarchy set out in Annex 1 will raise some key policy and enforcement issues, in particular the implication that rural non A and B roads in general could be subject to a speed limit below the current national limit for rural roads of 60 mph, and that 20 mph limits would be used more widely on roads without traffic calming features. However, the reference to A and B roads does not necessarily relate to current classifications and it will be important in the proposed study in Oxfordshire to take account of actual road conditions in developing the hierarchy. Babtie Ross Silcock themselves recognise that there will be a need for some reclassification of the road network. This could have wider implications relating to finance (as the Government’s Standard Spending Assessment uses the lengths of various classes of road as one of the factors) and signing.

Prospects for Casualty Reduction

8. On average, 341 people are killed or seriously injured on the County’s rural road network each year (i.e. roads not subject to a 40mph or lower speed limit). This is over 65% of the total people killed or seriously injured each year on Oxfordshire’s roads. These accidents tend to be spread out across the network and are not clustered together. This makes site specific treatment to reduce the number of casualties difficult to implement. The development of the proposed hierarchical approach would allow casualties to be tackled on a route or area-wide basis and, even if modest reductions in speed are achieved, there is the potential to save a significant number of casualties each year, thus helping to achieve the national target of a 40% reduction by 2010 and the County Council’s local targets for casualty reduction.
9. There are 1,921km of rural road within Oxfordshire and the implementation of new limits would take a number of years. It is recommended that the new limits are prioritised on the basis of accident routes thus ensuring that we achieve the maximum benefits in terms of casualty reduction.

Next Steps

10. It is proposed that the draft hierarchy for Oxfordshire should be used to develop a set of speed limit proposals that could be taken forward in the short term. Specific proposals will be reported to the Executive for approval to undertake a wide consultation on the proposed hierarchy and the detailed proposals.
11. To support these new limits and reduce the enforcement burden this approach may place on Thames Valley Police it is proposed to develop a speed management strategy as part of this work. This will involve the use of innovative and creative engineering measures, education measures such as SpeedWatch, Speed Indicator Devices (SIDS) and enforcement strategies in collaboration with Thames Valley Police. This strategy will ensure that the limits are as self-enforcing as possible.
12. This is one of the specific issues on which the Environment Scrutiny Committee wished to be consulted before any final decisions are made. It is suggested that this consultation should take place when the draft strategy is produced, and before it is considered by the Executive. Wider consultation will of course be needed in due course both on the principles of the hierarchy and strategy and the detailed speed limit proposals.

Environmental Implications

13. Under current legislation the implementation of new speed limits would require the widespread use of repeater signs in rural areas. The use of traffic calming in rural areas may also be seen as urbanising the rural environment. To alleviate these problems all signs will be sited sensitively and the minimum number of signs required by regulations will be used. Also every effort will be made to design innovative rural traffic calming measures that complement the rural environment rather than urbanise it.

Financial and Staff Implications

14. The development of the speed hierarchy will be carried out jointly by Babtie and officers of the County Council and can be funded from within existing budgets.

RECOMMENDATIONS

15. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

DAVID YOUNG
Director of Environmental Services

Contact Officer: Phil Crossland - Tel: Oxford 815083

March 2002

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