Lifesaving ‘Star Rating for Schools’ Program Celebrates 5-Year, 76 Country Impact Improving the Safety of School Journeys

17 February, 2025 [MARRAKECH]: The five-year success of the global Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) Program helping to make school journeys safer and healthier for vulnerable youth in 76 countries has been celebrated today in Marrakech.

SR4S’s 5-year impact was celebrated during the 4th Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, at major donor FIA Foundation’s pre-event ‘Challenge 2030 – achieving the global road safety goals’, alongside program lead partners and child health advocates who have championed its success since its pilot from 2011 and launch in 2020.

Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among young people aged 15-29 years.

Since its launch, Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) has helped improve the safety of more than 458,700 students on their journey to school, with global partners performing assessments at 1,940 schools in 76 countries informing US$4.84 million of infrastructure upgrades.

SR4S is an award-winning evidence-based program of tools, training and support to measure, manage and communicate the risk children are exposed to on a journey to school.

Developed by iRAP with the support of FedEx as the founding sponsor, along with donors the FIA Foundation and Prudence Foundation, and 3M as the legacy global program partner, the SR4S program of applications support quick interventions to improve the safety of road infrastructure around schools, saving lives and preventing serious injuries.

The SR4S app uses the already proven iRAP Star Rating methodology to assess the road features and traffic conditions known to affect safety. It provides an easy to use, systematic way of measuring the safety of a child’s journey to school from 1 to 5 stars (5 being the safest) and provides an evidence base from which recommendations to improve road safety can be made.

The sister Youth Engagement app (YEA) is an innovative tool that supports young people to identify and report road safety conditions around their schools, giving them a voice in shaping their communities.

Greg Smith, Acting CEO and Global Program Director of iRAP said: “Today’s 5-year milestone is a true celebration – a celebration of the program’s global success and partnerships that have spanned six continents, from boardrooms to roadsides to save lives and prevent youth injuries. It is the culmination of twelve years of research, development, pilot studies and empowered partnerships and projects around the world.”

The SR4S program and projects have attracted many awards including Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards in 2018 and 2024, and recognition of the Ai&Me Project in “2024’s Most Influential Global Projects Making Progress Towards the SDGs”.

SR4S has leveraged transformative investment in infrastructure upgrades and innovation including a US$2 million Google.org grant to make use of Artificial Intelligence and AiRAP partnerships to provide 3-star or better journeys to school – one of just 15 project grants awarded in the world in Google’s AI for the Global Goals Program.

Saul Billingsley, Executive Director of FIA Foundation, said: “Every day, millions of children risk their lives on the journey to school, on streets designed to prioritise traffic and speed over people. In five years, the Star Rating for Schools programme has protected hundreds of thousands of children and is making the compelling case for scaled-up infrastructure changes every day. The FIA Foundation is proud to be a core funder of this incredible achievement with NGO, government and auto club partners across the world.”

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