Many of the changes currently taking place on our road network in the UK are aligned to the active travel agenda; continuous footways are an increasingly common element. They are an innovative way of creating priority for the most vulnerable road users in the highway code hierarchy i.e those walking and wheeling. 

Whilst these layouts should offer improved safety through design, there is relatively little design guidance on how to make these elements inclusive and evaluation of the performance of these elements. This can leave highway authorities, and their designers, unsure of how to adapt the concept to their streets and how to understand the road safety implications.  

Using the framework in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges document GG104 – Requirements for Safety Risk Assessment, AtkinsRéalis has developed a generic risk assessment, to provide guidance and help those involved in the development, design, delivery or operation of continuous footways to make the right decisions.

This presentation will describe the process followed by the assessment team and explain:

• What the existing evidence base is for the safety of continuous footways.
• How the hazards were identified and how the assessment was structured.
• How risks were assessed including validation with highway design, road safety and inclusive design specialists.
• The trade-offs between the experience, and potentially safety, of different user groups.

The presentation will also explain what the challenges of implementing continuous footways tells us about the process of implementing the safe system in the UK.

John-Paul Doherty, Associate Technical Director & Technical Authority for the Operational Safety of Highways

John-Paul (JP) Doherty is the AtkinsRéalis UK Technical Authority for Operational Safety of Highways and chair of the internal technical group of approximately. 50 staff.

He is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Operational Safety Specialist in Highways, with more than 22 years’ experience across a number of high-profile projects in highway operations, road safety, safety risk management design standards research and development.

JP has been the operational safety lead on a number of major highway projects and was the technical lead for the current UK Road Safety Audit standard GG119. He is also a UK representative on the PIARC (World Road Association) Road Safety Technical Committee.