Road safety NGO’s from 15 countries around the world are meeting this month at FedEx’s headquarters in Memphis, USA, as part of their great partnership with the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety and the Alliance Empowerment Program.

During their two week capacity building programme, the delegates will road test the beta model of the iRAP Star Rating for Schools app which will help in delivering safer journeys to school for children worldwide. The delegates will find out how the app works and give their feedback and input. Crucially, they will try out the app in a real-life environment on a field visit to a school in Memphis led by iRAP’s Regional Director for the Americas, Julio Urzua.

Star Ratings for Schools has only been made possible by the great generosity of FedEx Cares, the charitable outreach of the global logistics giant. Shane O’Connor, the lead for FedEx Cares’ road safety focus, will be hosting the Memphis training session and described it as one of the charity’s: ‘Most exciting new projects with incredible global impact potential.’

Over the last couple of months, iRAP’s development partner, GoodWorkLabs, has made rapid progress in developing the android tablet app for data collection, and the associated results website. Star Rating for Schools will be officially launched at the ‘ Every Journey, Every Child’ international conference in London in October.

The app will deliver a quick and easy measurement of spot star rating and road safety risk for a child’s journey to school. This will support the identification of treatment options that can be considered subject to further investigation by the local road authority.

Importantly, the Star Rating for Schools assessments will be rolled out worldwide by the NGOs who are expert at engaging at the community level. This includes organisations like the FIA Mobility Clubs, Safe Kids Worldwide, AMEND, the Gonzalo Rodriguez Foundation, GRSP and the Global Alliance of NGO members. This will help ensure high quality assessments that are low-cost and scalable to ensure that Star Rating for Schools is made available to as many schools as possible around the world.