ThaiRAP Lead, Professor Kasem Choocharukul receives the award from Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha during the 15th National Road Safety Seminar (Image source: ThaiRAP)

ThaiRAP has been awarded a prestigious Prime Minister’s National Award for its outstanding efforts and commitment to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on Thailand’s roads.

The award was presented yesterday by the Prime Minister of Thailand Prayuth Chan-ocha during the 15th National Road Safety Seminar.

To date, ThaiRAP and its partners have Star Rated 50,000km of roads, designs and school zones.

More than 1,500 people have benefited from iRAP training delivered locally and nearly 200 have participated in global online events helping to build the capacity of local road safety professionals to make roads safer.

Thailand’s New Roads Policy aims for all new roads to achieve the global 3-star or better target standard to protect the lives of all road users and reduce injury.

The Thai Department of Rural Roads (DRR) has been awarded, 2 years running, the International Road Federation (IRF) Global Achievement Award in the Safety Category for its Integrated Road Safety Management System.

DRR’s iRAP-endorsed Road Safety Audit System (RSAS) has analysed the risk scores for rural road segments of its 47,303km road network based on the iRAP Star Rating methodology.

Within two years, the project achieved:

• 1,309 risk spots have been investigated and treated
• Crashes have reduced by 71% from 1,309 to 1,021 crashes
• Fatalities have reduced by 75% from 52 to 13 fatalities
• An estimated benefit-cost ratio of 3.9 has been achieved with the estimated improvements cost of $3.0 million and benefits from lives saved by the improvements of $11.8 million – a benefit equal to nearly 4 times the improvement investment.

ThaiRAP is led by iRAP Centre of Excellence Chulalongkorn University.

As a Centre of Excellence, the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University is focussed on building local capacity for high quality risk mapping, star rating and safer road investment planning assessments across the country. The university is working in partnership with the Ministry of Transport, Department of Highways, Department of Rural Roads, Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the University and other key stakeholders to implement the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 and develop ThaiRAP to eliminate high-risk roads.

According to iRAP’s Vaccines for Roads Big Data Tool, achieving greater than 75% of travel on 3-star or better roads for all road users in Thailand by 2030 stands to save over 1.6 million lives and serious injuries per year with an economic benefit of USD$201 billion – $34 of benefit for every $1 spent.

For more information on ThaiRAP, visit https://www.thairap.org/ or contact Professor Kasem Choocharukul on email kasem.choo@chula.ac.th

ThaiRAP was on show at yesterday’s 15th National Road Safety Seminar, hosting an exhibition booth and sharing demonstrations of how star ratings are assessed and the current safety status of Thai roads.

Click here to visit Vaccines for Roads to explore the human impact of road crash injury, how safe Thailand’s roads are, the road attributes that matter and the Business Case for achieving a 3-star or better safety standard.