In recognition of International Youth Day this month, we celebrate the many ways iRAP is partnering with youth and for youth to ensure their voice is included and needs prioritised in road safety projects and partnerships worldwide.
Did you know?:
- Half of the people on our planet are 30 or younger, and this is expected to reach 57% by the end of 2030.
- By 2050, the people who are under 25 today will compose more than 90% of the prime-age workforce.
- Road traffic crashes are the biggest killer of youth aged 15-29 years old, with an estimated 1,000 dying every day on the world’s roads. It is estimated this costs the global economy US$3.5 billion each day.
Youth are our future and protecting them on their journeys and ensuring their safe access to education and life opportunities is essential to global sustainability.
Here’s just a few of the ways we’re engaging and prioritising youth in our charity’s strategic decision making, projects, partnerships and tools to empower young changemakers and prevent youth road trauma.
Strategic Guidance
Did you know? Raquel Barrios, Executive Director of the Global Youth Coalition – Youth for Road Safety (YOURS) is a member of the iRAP Board, and Estiara Ellizar, YOURS’ Youth Leadership Board Member, sits on iRAP’s Global Policy Advisory Committee. As youth leaders with expertise in road safety, children’s rights and transport planning for sustainable cities, they are providing important input to the development of our charity, helping to guide the development of tools and partnerships for youth road safety impact.
Partnerships for Impact
iRAP partners with more than 36,000 partners worldwide to help make our roads safer. This includes the many global organisations working at the coal face of youth road safety such as: YOURS, the FIA Foundation Child Health Initiative, Safe Kids Worldwide, UNICEF, AIP Foundation, Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA), Cities for Children, Fundación Gonzalo Rodríguez, AMEND, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety and its member NGOs, Global Road Safety Partnership, International Road Federation (IRF Geneva), Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST), World Resources Institute (WRI), FedEx, 3M, Prudence Foundation, PATH, Walk21, and more. These partnerships are driving evidence-based advocacy for safer youth journeys, increased road safety capacity, and tools and investment to improve high-risk roads.
Tools Shaping our Understanding of Road Risk and its Elimination
In addition to iRAP’s comprehensive suite of RAPTools to improve road infrastructure safety, these are particularly pertinent to youth safety:
Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) is an award-winning evidence-based programme of tools, training and support to measure, manage and communicate the risk children are exposed to on their journey to school. In use in 80 countries, SR4S assessments are helping to inform advocacy and strategic investment in infrastructure upgrades saving lives and preventing serious injuries every day. It is estimated that the safety of 495,309 students is being positively by the programme. Read more here.
The Youth Engagement App (YEA) is an innovative tool that allows young people to easily identify and report road safety conditions around their schools. YEA helps young people actively participate in improving road safety, giving them a voice in shaping their communities. To date, 3,760 users have placed more than 20,000 pins to identify where they feel safe and unsafe on their journeys to school in Vietnam. The use of YEA is now scaling, empowering safer school journeys in Chile, South Africa, and Peru. Read more here.
CycleRAP is an easy, affordable and fast method of evaluating road and bicycling infrastructure for safety. In use in more than 20 countries, it aims to reduce crashes and improve safety specifically for bicyclists and other light mobility users by identifying high risk locations without the need for crash data. Read more here.
Projects Transforming Youth Road Safety
As well as thousands of partner-led iRAP and Star Rating for Schools projects transforming road safety in 135 countries, the following projects are transforming our understanding of youth road safety risk and evidence-based action for global impact:
The AI&Me Project was a groundbreaking success in empowering youth to drive real change in school zone safety across Vietnam. Led by the AIP Foundation in partnership with iRAP and supported by Fondation Botnar, the project combined artificial intelligence, big data analysis, and youth participation to assess and improve road conditions in three cities of the country. It led to the development of a Big Data Methodology to identify high-risk school zones in the cities, empowerment of over 1,800 young students with mobility and road safety skills; development of the YEA app and its use by youth to indicate high-risk areas; prioritisation of schools for further road safety analysis using SR4S and improvement; and a Citizen Portal embedded in five provincial government websites to support dialogues with communities and decision-makers toward a healthy and safe environment for young people to thrive. The initiative was awarded the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award and named one of PMI’s Most Influential Projects of 2024, showcasing its success as a model for how technology and youth-led advocacy can transform road safety for the next generation. Read more here.
The Google AI for the Global Goals Project now follows and is leveraging AI tools for road safety to promote a safe environment for children around schools Vietnam-wide. The project is funded by Google.org and led by iRAP, with project partners including the AIP Foundation, ANDITI, and the Faculty of Electric Engineering and Computing, and the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb. Read more here.
Also in Vietnam, and following the success of Ai&Me, the Empowering Youth for Liveable Cities program is now underway from 2024 to 2027. It focusses on activating digital tools to create more accessible, user-friendly platforms that amplify youth voices in mobility issues; empowering young people to translate their ideas into effective solutions and confidently present them to decision-makers; and stakeholder engagement, encouraging policy-makers to meaningfully engage with young leaders at all stages and levels of policy and decision making. It is a collaborative effort between AIP Foundation and its key partners, Fondation Botnar, FIA Foundation, iRAP and YOURS. Read more here.
The EU-funded ‘Predictive Approaches for Safer Urban Environment’ (PHOEBE) Project aims to increase the road safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs), especially those who use active mobility and e-scooters, like youth. It is building on the strengths of iRAP’s road safety assessment tools and AIMSUN’s simulation and Artificial Intelligence to deliver harmonised, integrated and world-leading safety prediction tools that take account of gender, age and ability levels in providing for future mobility. Read more here.
Building Capacity
iRAP Training and Accreditation are helping to build the road safety knowledge and skills of youth across the world. In February, iRAP joined more than 150 young leaders from over 130 countries in Marrakech for the 3rd World Youth Assembly for Road Safety. Held as an official side event of the 4th Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, the Assembly provided a dynamic platform for youth to drive the agenda, and iRAP conducted a hand-on Star Rating for Schools training with Abertis Foundation. Read more here.
Over 87,000 people have received iRAP training in how to eliminate road infrastructure risk, including for youth. Of them, nearly 8,500 people have been trained in Star Rating for Schools. Programmes such as the SR4S Youth Stars Master Trainers for university and college students, are empowering the ongoing on-training of young changemakers world-wide.
iRAP’s International Women in Engineering Grants are supporting the professional development of young female engineers, helping to improve road safety in their countries, and beyond.
Data Insights by Age and Gender
The iRAP Safety Insights Explorer is a valuable tool shining a light on the true scale of road crashes, the safety of the world’s roads, and the positive impact that can be made with investment. It allows you to explore:
- Estimates of the numbers and types of injuries that occur for every country by age and sex.
- Star Ratings and key design attributes for more than 500,000km of roads in 84 countries.
- The business case for investing in safer roads, including the life-saving impact of ensuring that most travel occurs on roads rated 3-stars or better for everyone for every country.
For youth insights, explore the Tool and age filter here.
International Youth Day is celebrated on 12 August and this year, with the theme ‘Local Youth Actions for the SDGs and Beyond’, the unique role of youth in translating global ambitions into community-driven realities has been highlighted.
We are proud to support our youth #RAPCommunity and the many inspiring organisations cultivating and empowering projects, programmes and ambitions for safer journeys – to save lives and prevent serious injuries for our most vulnerable youth.
English 
Português do Brasil 
Français 
Tiếng Việt 
Русский 
Español de Colombia 
Nederlands 
