# Sofia Road Safety Map — Project Goals ## Purpose Create an evidence-based, public map of road safety issues on roads in Sofia. The map should help residents, researchers, road-safety professionals, and public authorities understand where hazardous road conditions exist, what evidence supports each finding, who is exposed to the risk, and which improvements should be prioritised. The project's inspection framework is based on Annex IIa, **Indicative Elements of Targeted Road Safety Inspections**, of the consolidated version of [Directive 2008/96/EC on road infrastructure safety management](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02008L0096-20191216) dated 16 December 2019. ## Primary goals 1. **Build a geospatial inventory of road safety issues in Sofia.** Record issues as points, road segments, intersections, crossings, bridges, tunnels, or areas, using a consistent location model. 2. **Base every mapped finding on verifiable evidence.** Preserve the evidence type, source, observation or publication date, contributor, methodology, and a link or reference to the underlying material. Evidence may include field inspections, photographs, measurements, official data, collision data, traffic and speed observations, or documented reports. 3. **Use a consistent inspection taxonomy.** Classify findings using the Annex IIa elements listed below so that observations are comparable across Sofia and over time. 4. **Represent risk, uncertainty, and exposure transparently.** For each finding, distinguish the observed condition from its interpretation. Record severity, confidence, affected road users, exposure indicators where available, and whether the issue is recurring, seasonal, temporary, or time-sensitive. 5. **Give explicit attention to vulnerable road users.** Make risks to pedestrians, cyclists, powered two-wheelers, public-transport users, children, older people, and people with disabilities visible rather than treating motor-vehicle safety as the default. 6. **Support prioritisation and remedial action.** Enable findings to be ranked by risk, strength of evidence, number and vulnerability of exposed users, urgency, and the likely safety benefit and feasibility of corrective measures. Track an issue from observation through review, proposed remedy, and resolution. 7. **Measure completeness and change over time.** Show which roads and inspection elements have adequate evidence, which have not yet been assessed, and when each location was last checked. Preserve historical observations so changes and interventions can be evaluated. 8. **Publish information in reusable forms.** Provide an accessible interactive map together with documented, machine-readable data that can be reviewed, corrected, analysed, and reused. Avoid exposing personal or otherwise sensitive information. 9. **Maintain a reviewable evidence standard.** Define validation and moderation rules, retain provenance, identify conflicting evidence, and allow corrections without erasing the history of a finding. The map should clearly state that it supports safety analysis and does not replace a legally prescribed expert road-safety inspection. ## Inspection elements from Annex IIa The following indicative elements define the initial issue taxonomy. They should be adapted to Sofia's urban context without losing their connection to the source framework. ### 1. Road alignment and cross-section - Visibility and sight distances - Speed limits and speed zoning - Self-explaining alignment: whether road users can readily understand the road layout - Access to adjacent properties and developments - Access for emergency and service vehicles - Treatments at bridges and culverts - Roadside layout, including shoulders, pavement drop-offs, and cut-and-fill slopes ### 2. Intersections and interchanges - Appropriateness of the intersection or interchange type - Geometry of the intersection or interchange layout - Visibility and readability (perception) of intersections - Visibility at the intersection - Layout of auxiliary lanes at intersections - Intersection traffic control, such as stop control and traffic signals - Presence of pedestrian and cycling crossings ### 3. Provision for vulnerable road users - Provision for pedestrians - Provision for cyclists - Provision for powered two-wheelers - Public transport and its infrastructure - Level crossings, including their type and whether they are staffed or unstaffed, manual, or automated ### 4. Lighting, signs, and markings - Coherent road signs that do not obscure visibility - Readability of road signs, including position, size, and colour - Signposts - Coherent road markings and delineation - Readability of road markings, including position, dimensions, and retroreflectivity in dry and wet conditions - Appropriate contrast of road markings - Lighting of lit roads and intersections - Appropriate roadside equipment ### 5. Traffic signals - Operation - Visibility ### 6. Objects, clear zones, and road restraint systems - Roadside environment, including vegetation - Roadside hazards and their distance from the carriageway or cycle-path edge - Road restraint systems, including central reservations and crash barriers, adapted so they do not create hazards for vulnerable road users - End treatments of crash barriers - Appropriate road restraint systems at bridges and culverts - Fences on roads with restricted access ### 7. Pavement - Pavement defects - Skid resistance - Loose material, gravel, or stones - Ponding and water drainage ### 8. Bridges and tunnels - Presence and number of bridges - Presence and number of tunnels - Visible elements that represent hazards to infrastructure safety ### 9. Other issues - Safe parking areas and rest areas - Provision for heavy vehicles - Headlight glare - Roadworks - Unsafe roadside activities - Appropriate information on intelligent transport systems, such as variable-message signs - Wildlife and animals - School-zone warnings, where applicable ## Minimum information for a mapped finding Each finding should include, where applicable: - A stable identifier and precise geometry - Annex IIa category and element - Description of the observed condition - Date and time of observation, plus validity or review date - Evidence and its source or provenance - Affected road users and direction of travel - Severity, confidence, and the reasoning behind each rating - Relevant exposure data, such as pedestrian, bicycle, vehicle, or public-transport volumes - Relevant collision or injury data, clearly separated from infrastructure observations - Current status: reported, under review, verified, action proposed, action in progress, resolved, or rejected - Suggested remedy, responsible authority if known, and links to related findings ## Success criteria The project is successful when: - Findings can be filtered and compared by location, inspection element, affected user, severity, confidence, evidence type, date, and status. - Every published finding is traceable to evidence and displays its recency and confidence. - Map coverage and unassessed areas are visible, preventing the absence of reports from being mistaken for safety. - Vulnerable-road-user issues can be analysed independently and alongside general road risks. - Duplicate or conflicting reports can be reconciled without losing provenance. - Data can be exported through an openly documented format or interface. - Changes to a location and the outcomes of remedial measures can be evaluated over time. ## Initial scope - **Geography:** roads and road-related public space within Sofia Municipality. - **Asset lifecycle:** existing roads and temporary conditions such as roadworks; proposed designs are outside the initial scope unless needed to document a remedy. - **Evidence:** both official and community-contributed evidence may be included, but their origin and validation status must remain distinguishable. - **Language:** the data model should support Bulgarian as the primary public language and English where useful for interoperability.