Photo Caption: Strata Engenharia survey vehicle – just one of the suppliers involved in the national assessment

Brazil’s National Department of Transport Infrastructure, DNIT, is progressing well in its survey of 55,000km of national roads – the entire paved network under its responsibility and the largest application of iRAP’s methodology in Latin America.

Four iRAP accredited suppliers – Pavesys Engenharia, Dynatest Engenharia, Strata Engenharia and Vectra Esteio Rodovias – are undertaking the survey with the support of iRAP Centre of Excellence Labtrans. Road Assessment Services, iRAP’s Strategic Projects arm, will support with quality assurance of the data collected.

To date, 25,000km have been surveyed and passed the internal DNIT review process. The project is expected to be complete by June 2021.

Incorporating the iRAP methodology in its assessment will enable DNIT to assess network crash risk for road user groups and prioritize countermeasures to maximise lives and serious injuries saved in their maintenance and construction works.

DNIT Director of Planning and Research, Luiz Guilherme de Mello said at the commencement of the study, “We are adopting an important management tool (iRAP) that will enable us to indicate where action is needed to increase road safety and also raise the costs of intervention,” he said.

Read Rodovias&Vias’s interview with Luiz Guilherme de Mello in the November 2020 Issue 124 here (pages 94-94).

DNIT hosts the Brazil Road Assessment Programme (BrazilRAP) working closely with iRAP, national and state road authorities, development banks, mobility clubs, research institutions and road safety NGOs to  identify and eliminate high-risk roads in the country.

Based on World Health Organisation 2015 data, the programme aims to reduce the 41,000 people killed in road crashes in Brazil each year.  According to iRAP’s Vaccines for Roads Big Data Tool, achieving greater than 75% of travel roads on 3-star or better roads for all road users by 2030 would save over 13,700 fatalities a year with an economic benefit of $9 for every $1 spent.

For more information on BrazilRAP, see the brochure in English and Portuguese.