Number of accidents to significantly drop on Hungarian roads2012. május 25.
Hungarian Public Road Non-profit Ltd. will receive more than HUF 11 billion for traffic safety developments on its roads by the end of 2014. The assistance contract of the project was signed during the transport development conference of the Hungarian Chamber of Engineers on 15 May 2012 at Balatonföldvár. As was explained by Zoltán Schváb, Deputy State Secretary for Transport, the number of fatal and severe accidents has dropped to almost one third and been halved respectively as a result of 77 similar interventions carried out by road management.
The Hungarian Road Management Company is eliminating accident-prone areas identified in 69 intersections in and outside inhabited areas by adding left-turn lanes, installing acoustic road markings, road signs and traffic light control systems among other means. The building of central refugee islands, pedestrian guard railing and providing durable road markings will increase the safety of 11 pedestrian crossings. On a 520 km long section of the main roads, 255,000 running meters of barriers will be replaced by high impact resistant roadside barriers. As a result of the projects, changeable message signs will be installed to impose speed limits in both directions of 50 accident-prone bus stops outside inhabited areas for the time of potential pedestrian movement. The traditional traffic light bulbs of 355 signal controlled intersections will be replaced by more visible energy saving LED lights and in 713 locations vehicle detectors will be installed to operate traffic lights in accordance with the traffic flow.
At the initiative of the Ministry, this was the first time to allocate targeted funds in a total amount of HUF 50 billion within the New Széchenyi Plan for infrastructure development to prevent accidents resulting in personal injury. The itemized project list was created on the basis of professional proposals by railroad and road management companies which have the largest experience with these problems and accident-prone areas.
The New Széchenyi Plan granted HUF 13.2 billion to State Motorway Management Ltd., HUF 12.4 billion to Hungarian Railways, HUF 11.4 billion to the Hungarian Road Management Company and HUF 982 million to Győr-Sopron-Ebenfurt Railway Ltd. for transport safety measures. In March the Government decided to specify these four priority project proposals in its action plan. Railroad and road infrastructure safety development programs in the amount of HUF 38 billion will be launched as the first stage of this nationwide traffic safety programme of unprecedented scale, to prevent accidents leading to injury.
These works typically do not require building permits and will be completed by the second half of 2015 at the latest. A common feature of these projects is efficiency as they achieve significant results at relatively low costs in the reduction of the number of road accidents and the decrease of their severity and the personal and material damage caused.
Source: Ministry of National Development