Certification for Road Safety Auditors and Inspectors
According to Directive 2008/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of November 19th, 2008 on road infractructure safety management, specifically trained Road Safety Auditors have to be in place especially for carrying out Road Safety Audits (RSA) and Inspections (RSI).
The Directive 2008/96/EC has been transfered into national law by Austrian Federal Law of the Roads (amended after EU-directive entered into force). Since then an improving of the safety of road infrastructure within the trans-European road network is also in the scope with giving RSA/RSI-Certifications. In Austria the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology has to award the certifications to qualified experts. The FSV supports the ministry with its Technical Advisory Committee for Road Safety Certifications.
For certifications only natural persons are permitted, corporate bodies like organizations and companies won´t get an overall certification. Certified employees keep their certification also when they change jobs. For reaching a certification three preconditions are needed, a technical education, years of experiences in road safety planning and accident analysis, and a RSA/RSI-seminar. The FSV organizes with its Technical Advisory Committee for Road Safety Certifications a seminar, which has to be finished with positive exam. Together with the other preconditions the certification can be awarded finally.
The FSV has issued following guidelines for planning, construction and maintenance of roads for the scope of RSA and RSI and how certification process works (the guidelines are available still only in German):
Hence, the FSV created an advanced training seminar (RSA/RSI-seminar) for road safety experts as a basis for achieving the certification. The advanced training according to directive 2008/96/EG is offered to highly qualified planning experts and experts working in similar fields of business. For this purpose, the Technical Advisory Committee for Road Safety Certifications has been established, consisting of members which have required professional competences for coordinating the training and for evaluating road safety experts. Till now, also the RSA/RSI-seminar is held only in German (Link to German website).
The certification is valid for five years then it can be recertified for the next five years. The holder of the certification has to apply for the recertification process to the ministry or to the FSV otherwise it stops after five years automatically.
The FSV itself has established its capacity as qualified Austrian service centre for the training and evaluation of road safety auditors. Retrospective, in the year 2014 more than 250 experts attended the advanced trainings and more than 20 of them were certified by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology in the same year.
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