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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to review the methodological and empirical underpinnings of transport network screening, or management, as it relates to improving road safety. As jurisdictions around the world are charged with transport network management in order to reduce externalities associated with road crashes, identifying potential blackspots or hotspots is an important if not critical function and responsibility of transport agencies.

Methodology – Key references from within the literature are summarised and discussed, along with a discussion of the evolution of thinking around hotspot identification and management. The theoretical developments that correspond with the evolution in thinking are provided, sprinkled with examples along the way.

Findings – Hotspot identification methodologies have evolved considerably over the past 30 or so years, correcting for methodological deficiencies along the way. Despite vast and significant advancements, identifying hotspots remains a reactive approach to managing road safety – relying on crashes to accrue in order to mitigate their occurrence. The most fruitful directions for future research will be in the establishment of reliable relationships between surrogate measures of road safety – such as ‘near misses’ – and actual crashes – so that safety can be proactively managed without the need for crashes to accrue.

Research implications – Research in hotspot identification will continue; however, it is likely to shift over time to both closer to ‘real-time’ crash risk detection and considering safety improvements using surrogate measures of road safety – described in Chapter 17.

Practical implications – There are two types of errors made in hotspot detection – identifying a ‘risky’ site as ‘safe’ and identifying a ‘safe’ site as ‘risky’. In the former case no investments will be made to improve safety, while in the latter case ineffective or inefficient safety improvements could be made. To minimise these errors, transport network safety managers should be applying the current state of the practice methods for hotspot detection. Moreover, transport network safety managers should be eager to transition to proactive methods of network safety management to avoid the need for crashes to occur. While in its infancy, the use of surrogate measures of safety holds significant promise for the future.

Enforcement of regulatory controls has traditionally been left to the criminal law. In the last 15 years there has been an increasing interest in using civil remedies for this purpose. Most of the attention has been on financial services, but there have been recent developments in the UK planning system, which provide interesting parallels.

The Arms to Iraq inquiry by Sir Richard Scott, Vice Chancellor of the Supreme Court, has recommended a comprehensive review of the system of export licensing. The inquiry was set up after the failed prosecution of directors of a machine tool manufacturer, Matrix Churchill, was abandoned. It had been alleged that the directors had deceived the Government as to the intended use of machine tools that were exported to Iraq in the late 1980s. The Scott Report provides the first comprehensive legal analysis of the licensing system and makes trenchant recommendations for its reform.

The Scott Report provides guidance on the role of Government agencies in bringing prosecutions. The inquiry was triggered by the collapse of the prosecution of three directors of an engineering company for exporting machine tools to Iraq in breach of export controls. Export control licensing is the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry (‘the DTI’). The prosecution, along with a number of others considered by the inquiry, was brought by Customs and Excise.

Public officials are subject to a wider range of duties than private employees. In both cases, certain acts, such as stealing from their employer, will be criminal. But much misconduct by employees of private organisations does not give rise to criminal sanction. Failure to carry out duties, or deriving a private benefit by reason of employment, would be, in a general sense, misconduct. There may be private law remedies, for example for breach of fiduciary duties or the duty of fidelity. Additionally the employee can be disciplined and dismissed, subject to the requirements of labour law. Third parties affected by the misconduct may have civil remedies against the employee and his employer.

The Securities and Investments Board (SIB) is the senior regulator of investment business in the UK. It has considerable civil powers to restrain contraventions and secure compensation for investors.

The Privy Council in the recent Brunei decision of Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn Bhd v Tan has widened the liability of third parties who assist in a breach of trust. They will now be liable if they have dishonestly facilitated an otherwise honest breach. This decision is of fundamental importance to professionals, such as bankers, lawyers and accountants, who deal with other persons' financial or business affairs.

Elaborate systems have been established to investigate and control the operation of government. These enable central government to deal with internal problems. But they also have important roles in maintaining accountability to Parliament; detecting breaches of the law and maintaining public confidence in government.

Purpose – Urban and suburban arterials carry a large share of urban traffic and contend with a relatively large proportion of transport network crashes. Road crashes and their consequent societal costs diminish the sustainability of transportation systems, highlighting the need to identify road safety problems and their corresponding solutions. This chapter briefly outlines problems and solutions associated with crash risk on urban and suburban arterials. In addition, this chapter studies and discusses several safety countermeasures – ranging from local treatments to integral frameworks – and their effectiveness on improving traffic safety of urban and suburban arterials.

Approach – Crash occurrence on urban and suburban arterials is affected by numerous contributing factors. This chapter pays attention primarily to the effects of traffic characteristics and road design features. In this regard, several pertinent variables which have been extensively examined in the literature are reviewed and their contributions to the safety of urban and suburban arterials are discussed.

Findings – A review of the literature identifies a number of variables as influential factors of crashes on urban and suburban arterials. Although the associations of some variables (e.g., traffic volume) are consistent with expectations, others (e.g., lane width and speed) show mixed and sometimes counterintuitive results. These findings signify that additional research is needed to reveal the correct functional form and magnitude of these relationships.

Practical implications – The results show that while the general direction and magnitude of effects of some engineering and management-related treatments are known, additional research is needed to consolidate the impact and effectiveness of integrated approaches.

The cultural heritage of a nation is an important part of its identity. Its works of art, its records and archives and its archaeological remains contribute to its past and its present. Many nations are legitimately concerned to retain this cultural legacy, even where the objects are being sold to recognised galleries or museums in other countries. The export ban imposed by the British Government on the ‘Three Graces’ was a prominent example of the importance attached to certain works of art.