Systematic review, evaluation and comparison of different approaches for the implementation of road network safety analysis

Road safety is still a major issue all around the world. The capability to analyze the road network and identify high-risk sections is crucial in road safety management. Therefore, road administrations, practitioners, and researchers need to have a clear and practical framework of the available road network safety analysis procedures. This study aims to provide such a framework by carrying out an exhaustive analysis of the main procedures available all around the world. The proposed literature review has started considering a web search on Web of Science (WoS). Then, a systematic review of each publication has been carried out using the Bibliometrix software, to identify the main characteristics of the publications within the specific topic. Then, the most relevant and widespread safety analysis procedures have been considered and the following aspects have been analyzed: the type of approach (crash analysis, crash prediction models procedures, based on road safety inspections, etc.), which and how many data are required (crashes, traffic, visual inspections, geometrical data, etc.), which is the effectiveness of the procedure, and which are the segmentation criteria used (fixed length, variable length based on geometry, traffic, etc.). Ten different procedures for road network safety analysis have been considered for detailed analysis. The research findings highlight that each procedure has its pros and cons. The choice of the best procedure to use is highly related to the characteristics of the road network that need to be analyzed, to the availability of data, and to the main elements the Road Authorities (RA) want to give priority. This collection and review of different procedures will be of great interest to RAs, practitioners, and researchers in the process of selecting the most useful procedure to use to carry out a road network safety analysis.