Star-rating your street plans with iRAP and the Global Street Design Guide

iRAP is proud to announce the release of the new iRAP Star Ratings of NACTO-GDCI’s Global Street Design Guide.

The Global Street Design Guide is a new global blueprint for safer and higher-performing streets, addressing the 1.35 million road crash deaths and up to 50 million annual injuries. The Guide was originally released in 2016 by NACTO’s Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS).

High quality road design takes the needs of all road users into account. This supplement to the Global Street Design Guide – which gives the iRAP Star Rating for the existing and improved designs – will allow road designers everywhere to understand the scale of the safety benefit that good road design can deliver. Importantly, it is freely available, and will provide ideas to those wanting to make safety upgrades to their streets, and will help those making upgrades understand the safety benefits.

iRAP’s Star Ratings are the global standard for road infrastructure safety and are embedded into the UN Road Safety Targets. Star Ratings also provide a direct connection to the economic benefit of safer streets. For each increase in Star Rating, the cost of road crashes is typically halved.

iRAP’s Safe Cities and Innovation Specialist Monica Olyslagers said, “This new resource will help countries around the world create 5-Star streets for all road users.” The iRAP Star Ratings of the Global Street Design Guide renderings were undertaken by iRAP and supported by the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) through the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS).

Road safety remains a critical issue. Upon release of the Global Street Design Guide, Michael R. Bloomberg, Founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Former Mayor of New York City said, “City streets are at the center of so many big challenges facing the world, from health and safety to climate change. The guide is full of creative ways cities are reshaping streets to better serve the public— and if those ideas spread around the world, they can help improve billions of lives.”

Download the free resource here

Read more on how to use the document here

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 About iRAP Star Ratings:

iRAP Star Ratings provide a simple and objective measure of the level of safety provided by a road’s design. Star Ratings use a robust, evidence-based approach to assess the risk for four road user groups: pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and vehicle occupants. iRAP’s Star Ratings are the global standard for road infrastructure safety and are embedded into the UN Road Safety Targets.

Star Ratings represent the infrastructure related risk of death or serious injury. A five-star street is the safest while a one-star street is the least safe.

iRAP is financially supported by the FIA Foundation. Projects receive support from the Global Road Safety Facility, mobility clubs, regional development banks and donors. Our partners, charities, the motor industry and institutions such as the European Commission also support RAPs in the developed world and encourage the transfer of research and technology to iRAP. In addition, many individuals donate their time and expertise to support iRAP.

For more information on iRAP visit irap.org

About NACTO-GDCI:

The Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) is a program of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), a non-profit organization that aims to inspire a shift towards safe, sustainable, and healthy cities through transforming our streets.

For more information on NACTO-GDCI visit https://globaldesigningcities.org/

About the Global Street Design Guide:

Created with the input of 72 cities and 42 countries, the Global Street Design Guide (GSDG) offers technical details to inform street design that prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. The guide includes real-world examples of street and intersection transformations that improve road safety as well as the overall efficiency of urban streets.

For more information on the Global Street Design Guide visit https://globaldesigningcities.org/publication/global-street-design-guide/