The specificity of road safety: a few reflections

Road traffic can be interpreted as a phenomenon of great complexity which is not subject to simple laws, and often one can observe paradoxes contrary to intuition or common sense. This paper contains several specific problems showing the multi-faceted nature of road safety issues.INTRODUCTION
The proper functioning of transport systems depends to a large degree on efficient management. It should ensure that transport is highly functional, pro-ecological, economically optimal and, above all, safe.
When writing about managing road traffic safety, one needs to take into account all elements of the transport system involved in road traffic; these include primarily: 1. road transport infrastructure; 2. means of transport; 3. human factors (various roles in the transport system); 4. system environment; 5. three main working processes of the system, i.e. road traffic, cargo operations, traffic control processes.
Road traffic is a very difficult object of study. It is a process that is: 1. spatially and temporally non-stationary, 2. has the nature of a self-organizing process, 3. involves difficult decision-making tasks and often has small safety margins.
On the other hand, there are certain regularities which may facilitate analysis and traffic management: 1. demand for traffic often has a repetitive character, hence the observed cyclicality; 2. traffic on the road network has a long-term trend to stabilize the structure of movement, as a result of which traffic participants set their preferences for route choice for traffic needs.
Technical University of Radom, Faculty of Transport and Electrical Engineering, POLAND; Radom 26-600; (…)

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