The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and digital start-up ORIS have today signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will see safety performance data produced using the iRAP Methodology integrated into ORIS’ pavement design platforms, helping to optimise the safety and sustainability of global road designs and construction.

The organisations will pursue joint opportunities for their combined approach to provide multidimensional road assessments that integrate iRAP Star Rating results and enable designers to now additionally optimise the road safety impact of their projects, saving lives and serious injuries.

Supported by Artificial Intelligence, the ORIS Digital Pavement Design and Material Management Platform gathers data on locally available construction materials and international and local standards, and considers factors like expected traffic and weather conditions to assess the carbon and cost life cycle impacts of different design options. It employs a unique material sourcing database, which helps link projects to locally available and recyclable materials to encourage uptake of circular economy approaches.

ORIS reports that with its system, road designers can reduce the carbon footprint of roads by up to 50%, increase the infrastructure lifespan by up to 3 times and lower costs by a range of 15% to 30%.

Adding iRAP Star Ratings to the ORIS tool – where 1-star roads are the least safe and 5-star roads are the safest – will additionally empower road designers to analyse and improve the safety of their designs for vehicle occupants, pedestrians, motorcyclists and bicyclists, before construction, to reduce road trauma.

Research shows that for each incremental increase in the iRAP Star Rating of a road, crash costs are halved, highlighting the significant economic benefit of the tools’ association.

The MOU follows a successful pilot project in Uzbekistan, with the ORIS team trained to perform iRAP safety assessments and include the results in their road assessment dashboard.

The teams will now work together to connect ORIS and ViDA, iRAP’s free-to-air online data processing engine for Star Ratings, Fatality and Serious Injury (FSI) Estimates and Investment Plans, using the iRAP ViDA API.

The integration, aimed to be complete by November 2022, will enable the automatic flow of Star Rating results to the ORIS safety dashboard, empowering users to enhance the road safety of their designs.

iRAP Global Technical Director James Bradford said, “We are delighted to partner with ORIS in this exciting initiative that has tremendous potential to enhance the road safety, sustainability and environment impact of road construction world-wide.

“Through iRAP’s Innovation Framework, the partnership is one of several exciting initiatives underway globally that are Made Safer by iRAP and will help countries accelerate towards the global target of halving road death and injury by 2030.”

ORIS CEO Nicolas Miravalls said, “We are proud to partner with iRAP to support our customers in positioning road safety as a key element of their project design, at the same level as environmental concerns and cost-efficiency. It is a great step towards enabling an holistic, sustainable, safe and responsible approach to road pavement design.”

More than 1.4 million kilometres of roads and designs have been Star Rated by partners in 109 countries using the iRAP Methodology.

– ends –

About iRAP
iRAP is a registered charity with the vision for a world free of high-risk roads. The charity is active in over 100 countries and works with governments, development banks, mobility clubs, research organisations and road safety NGOs to provide them with the free tools, systems and training to make their roads safer. iRAP’s Star Rating Methodology provides a simple and objective measure of the level of safety which is ‘built-in’ to the road for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians. A 1-star road is the least safe and a 5-star road is the safest. The charity has influenced the safety of over USD$80 billion dollars of infrastructure investment, has Star Rated over 1.3 million kms and Risk Mapped over 1.6 million kms of road, and trained over 54,000 people globally. iRAP is the umbrella programme for regional road assessment programmes including EuroRAP, ChinaRAP, AusRAP, usRAP, KiwiRAP, IndiaRAP, BrazilRAP, South Africa RAP, ThaiRAP and MyRAP and is financially supported by the FIA Foundation and Global Road Safety Facility.
https://irap.org/

About ORIS
ORIS is a digital materials platform that enables professionals and public authorities to make data-driven decisions for more sustainable infrastructures. The platform computes the various parameters linked to the project in its real context, helping to drive investments according to priorities: carbon footprint mitigation, increased durability, local materials circularity, cost reduction, safety performance, or resilience to climate change. This Digital Pavement Design and Material Management Platform was incubated and developed in the research center of the leading building materials company HOLCIM in collaboration with the technology firm IBM. ORIS was incorporated in September 2021 as a neutral and independent company, serving with agility the construction ecosystem towards more sustainable infrastructure programs.
https://oris-connect.com/en/