Abstract

Road safety has evolved vertiginously in recent times and is one of the criteria to use, when making road solutions. There are methodologies that allow the analysis of vulnerability, threat and risk both on roads and in vehicles. This research evaluates the risk of rockfalls at three critical points of the Rafael Caldera Highway of the State of Mérida (Venezuela) through of the methodology of Fonseca and others (2010), for this we determine the level of danger considering the height of the slope, effectiveness of the gutter, average risk per vehicle, visibility distance, road width, geological characteristics, block size, weather conditions, history of landslides and their respective analysis by landslides. Based on this, a low level of danger was obtained for all slopes, 20 for first slope, 31 for second and 30 for the third case. Given the result, it should be emphasized that the danger values are low in consideration of what can be seen in the place and it is concluded that they must consider other additional characteristics to achieve a real danger value