SYNOPSIS

Traffic barriers are one of the essential components in the construction of roads, designed primarily to prevent and reduce the severity of traffic accidents. The technical reference used in the design and selection of the traffic barriers was published more than 14 years ago and much has changed during that period of time.

The standards for traffic barriers have evolved and changed with the advancement in technology, new research findings and changes in traffic demography. Existing references on the subject need to be reviewed, updated and improved to comply with the latest design standards and policies.

PWD Malaysia has published a new document on ‘Guidelines on Design and Selection of Traffic Restraint System’ to replace the existing document. Commonly used barriers such as guardrail, concrete and wire ropes have been technically updated and improved. The document also included some new topics such as barriers for bridges, crash attenuators and new types of barrier, which will be of interest to the road engineering fraternity.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Abdul Rahman Baharuddin received his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Southampton (UK) in 1984 and his Master’s Degree from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 1998. Early in his career, he was involved in the housing construction industry for almost 10 years but later worked with the Public Works Department in many road design and construction projects. He has also been involved in safety auditing of road projects and implementation of road safety programmes implemented throughout the country.

He was also active in the development of many technical documents relating to road safety, road design and road construction matters. He is an accredited road safety auditor and was a member of the PIARC (World Road Association) technical committee on Safer Roads by Infrastructure Design and Operation.