Designing and testing bollards to protect pedestrians

This is the second paper in a series of articles by the authors focussing on examples of how formalised Interface Analysis and Design methods can be applied to improve road safety across different road domains, in this case that of pedestrians and motorised vehicles. Bollards can be used as a barrier line against vehicle ingress in situations where traditional roadside safety barriers are not suitable and it is desirable to protect for example pedestrians on footpaths, roadside diners, people waiting at bus stops and tram stops, etc. Bollards provide a more slender protection line than traditional bulky road side barriers and a means for pedestrians to readily pass through the protection line. They are most suitable in shopping precincts where there is high pedestrian activity and where protection is required to shield against an errant vehicle that can still legally move at speeds in excess of 30 km/h. A methodology for designing, testing and rating the crashworthiness of bollards is presented. Some examples of inappropriate and potentially dangerous roadside barrier installations to protect pedestrians that could be replaced by bollards, are shown. The paper further discusses the test protocol proposed for bollards in the revision of AS/NZS3845 Road Safety Barrier Systems. The conclusions are: a barrier system constructed from bollards can be designed and crash tests carried out to validate that they perform in a crashworthy manner at an affordable cost; the bollard foundation is critical to the performance of the bollard to resist impact loads; and the speed of cars need to be controlled in terms of impact speed so as not to exceed the bollard’s capacity.