Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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254. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the way in which his Department is using ongoing data analysis and local knowledge to identify accident-prone areas and focus road safety interventions where they are most needed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37253/25]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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Network Safety Analysis is conducted annually on the Regional and Local Road Network using collision data (collected originally by members of An Garda Síochána). This process identifies high-risk road safety areas across the Regional and Local Road network, referred to as Locations of Interest (LOIs). Local authorities (LAs) are engaged to review and implement appropriate remedial measures at these sites.

Each year, LAs are invited to apply for funding from my Department to support engineering improvements at these LOI sites, supplementing their own resources. This investment is targeted by utilising collision statistics and the Network Safety Analysis. In addition to these LOI sites, local authorities also submit applications for safety schemes based on local knowledge and their engineering expertise.

Approximately €13m will be invested in Low-Cost Safety Improvement Works in 2025. Additional road safety schemes are also funded through the specific improvement and strategic regional and local road grant programmes.

There are two collision risk analysis mechanisms used by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) Road Safety for collision monitoring on the national road network, the first is reactive and the second is proactive.

Reactive

Re-active Collision Analysis - TII carries out collision analysis of the entire national road network, as required by TII Standard GE-STY-01022 Network Safety Analysis, and the EU Road Safety Infrastructure Management Directive. The purpose of this exercise is to identify locations that have above average concentrations of collisions.

TII assesses the need for schemes through a TII Standard ‘Network Safety Analysis Procedures’ which states that ‘A High Collision Location is defined as a site where the: Collision frequency is greater than or equal to 3 or more collisions within the period of analysis (typically 3 years). And Collision rate is greater than twice the expected (average) collision rate for a Reference Population.’ This standard was put in place in line with the European Directive for Road Infrastructure Management.

The above process does not however include the subsequent process to devise proposals to identify road safety interventions; this is the responsibility of the relevant local authority, as the road authority for the area in the first instance.

In order for TII to provide funding for safety improvement work, the road authority is required to design an appropriate scheme to deal with the safety issues identified, carry out an economic appraisal of the proposal/fully cost the scheme and prioritise the scheme in relation to other works being proposed by the road authority.

TII Road Safety have six Regional Road Safety Engineers that assist the local authorities in preparing reports for funding and are available throughout the process to assist in preparing the designs.

Proactive

Pro-active safety inspections, as detailed in TII Standard AM-STY-06044 Road Safety Inspection, is a safety assessment of the National Road Network , this require road safety auditors to visually inspect the national road network every three to four years and any aspects of the road that should be improved for safety are identified and reported to the local authority - these issues are call Road Safety Inspection (RSI) items and risk rating is based on collision data including the non-injury material damage collision records.