Brazil’s National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT) has completed the coding and star rating classification of 54,500 km of paved federal highways under its administration using the iRAP methodology.

For the federal road network coded by the DNIT, 67% of the roads were classified as 3-star or better for vehicle occupants, meeting the goals of the Global Plan for the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030 which sets the target for more than 75% of travel to be on 3-star or better roads for all road users by 2030.

Results as the coding was nearing completion:

Based on the star rating classification of the highways, according to the road attributes considered most likely to cause crashes, the iRAP methodology provides a list of recommended road safety countermeasures for implementation through a Safer Roads Investment Plan (SRIP). The SRIP is a prioritized list of countermeasures that, when applied as safety treatments, can improve star ratings by reducing risk related to the road infrastructure.

Scheduled for delivery in the first half of 2023, the SRIP will include an analysis of investments in road safety for a 20-year scenario, to assist DNIT in making budget decisions for the safe maintenance of federal highways under its administration. The use of 85 of the 94 countermeasures set out in the iRAP global methodology is foreseen, excluding only those not practised in the Brazilian context.

The assessment Star Rating maps and Safer Roads Investment Plans can be accessed online through the free iRAP ViDA platform, allowing for the extraction of results by region, state and/or road section.

In addition, DNIT is harnessing and sharing iRAP assessment data alongside local crash and fatality data using Power BI reporting to enable the enhanced visualization of results.

These reporting measures are putting results at the fingertips of partners to inform government decision making for strategic investment and upgrade prioritisation.

DNIT Director and BrazilRAP Lead Luiz de Mello presented the assessment results and Brazil’s experience at a recent Coffee and Connect Webinar to leads of other national road assessment programmes worldwide.

DNIT’s evidence-based leadership to eliminate high-risk road sections on its network is engaging and informing political debate and stakeholder engagement in the country at the highest level.

Last year, the Federal Government instituted a landmark Five Year Permanent Agenda for Road Safety to prevent road crashes on Brazil’s highways, including iRAP as the safety metric, with a goal to halve road deaths and injuries by 2028.

DNIT was awarded an iRAP International 5-Star Performer Award last year recognising the authority’s exceptional leadership in the creation of the BrazilRAP programme as well as its outstanding efforts to build local capacity and apply the iRAP methodology extensively on Brazil´s federal roads.

iRAP congratulates DNIT on this momentous effort in completing the assessment.

Images credit: Pexels Thiago Zanutim Lucas and DNIT