iRAP is celebrating reaching a milestone 100 countries. The charity and all of our partners are saving lives in more than half the countries of the world which accounts for 80% of the world’s population.

From Brazil to Iceland, Australia to Botswana, China to Slovakia, the International Road Assessment Programme and our partners have Star Rated over 1 million kilometres of roads, trained 19,000 engineers and influenced safety in over US$68 billion of safer road investment, in its vision for a world free of high risk roads.

iRAP CEO Rob McInerney said reaching the 100 countries milestone is a result of a great team effort from iRAP staff, our partners and the many thousands of people who have embraced our vision for a world free of high-risk roads.  The charity is grateful for the support of the FIA Foundation in making all of our life-saving work possible.  Key global and regional programme partners like the World Bank Global Road Safety Facility, Bloomberg Philanthropies, European Commission, Regional Development Banks, FedEx and ACEA help extend our shared success in saving lives.

“At the core of the iRAP partnerships is the energy, commitment and close partnerships of governments, mobility clubs, development banks, NGOs and road safety stakeholders working together to make their roads safer at a country level.  This local ownership is the key to implementing iRAP’s tools, training and support in the most powerful and locally relevant way. We’ve seen great examples of national partners helping each other, for example ChinaRAP helping Pakistan, Spain helping Portugal, IndiaRAP helping Tanzania, Mexico helping Brazil and the local programme leads from Malaysia, Thailand, India and China all cooperating to share their success and impact,”  he said.

“Achieving the United Nations Targets 3 and 4 by 2030 stands to save 467,000 lives globally a year with a benefit of US$8 for every $1 spent.

 “This milestone ‘century’ sees us  well on the way,” he added.

iRAP’s latest metrics have just been released:

Key country highlights include:

• New countries added in the last year include Azerbaijan, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Dominica, Haiti, Iran, Morocco, Rwanda and Samoa.
• ChinaRAP has star rated 250,000km of roads and upgraded 100,000km as part of the Highway Safety to Cherish Life initiative. More than US$5+ billion has been invested in safety countermeasures.
• In the UK, the Road Safety Foundation has successfully delivered investment plans as part of the UK DoT Safer Roads Fund. With the 4 July launch of the 2019 Annual Risk Mapping Results, the UK has now risk mapped nearly 700,000kms.
• In Australia, the Federal Government has announced a A$2.2 billion road safety fund and has national policy targets for more than 80% of travel on 3-star or better roads by 2020. The AusRAP programme has now assessed over 238,000km of roads and upgrades on a high-volume section of Queensland’s Bruce Highway by the Australian and Queensland Government are a great example of its work seeing the road stretch taken from 2 and 3-star to 4 and 5-star with an associated 83% reduction in fatalities.
• The IndiaRAP programme has already seen 2,500 engineers trained and the star rating of over 23,000kms of roads, including 5,000km on the Golden Quadrilateral. Recent upgrades on the Belgaum-Yaragatti Highway SH20, financed by the World Bank in Karnataka slashed fatalities by half.
• Exciting plans are underway in Europe with the 2.15 million RADAR project involving 12 countries over 3-years in the Eastern Europe Danube region and the 1.9 million Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) SLAIN Project involving 4 countries. These projects, alongwith a new EuroRAP Secretary General and support staff will enhance road infrastructure safety and partner support in the region.
• Malaysia is a regional leader in improving the safety of its road network. The Malaysian Government is committed to achieving 75% of travel at a 3-star or better performance level on the country’s high volume road network by 2020. 95% of their expressway network is rated 3-star or better and 435 sites have been upgraded.
• 47,000kms of light star rating assessments have been conducted in Thailand and Chulalongkorn University is leading ThaiRAP as an iRAP Centre of Excellence.
• Assessments of more than 14,000km of Abertis toll roads in 8 countries and associated training of staff in Abertis subsidiary companies have now been completed. Work is underway with a number of private sector concessionaires globally including  Australia, Italy, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru and Chile.
• An increasing number of countries have set national policy targets for 3-star or better roads  (e.g. UK, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, China, Netherlands, Australia and Chile) and many international agencies (e.g. UN, World Bank, ADB, Caribbean Development Bank, UNESCAP, Mil…) are encouraging and supporting project level targets for road upgrades to ensure 3-star or better journeys for all road users in support of the UN Member State agreed global road safety performance targets.

Did you know?:

• Star Rating targets are now specified by the United Nations, World Health Organisation, Sum4All and Road Safety Observatories. iRAP’s Big Data Tool and Business Case for Safer Roads supports national partners to understand where their roads are at and the economic and life saving potential in reaching UN Targets 3 and 4 by 2030.
• As a charity, iRAP’s tools and support are provided free to governments, mobility clubs, development banks, NGOs and road safety stakeholders to make their roads safer. With 90% of road fatalities occurring in low and middle income countries, this free-to-air structure ensures support is targeted for greatest life-saving impact. We are only able to do this thanks to the generous core financial support of the FIA Foundation.
• 10 Centres of Excellence around the world ensure the technical governance of iRAP’s evidence-based protocols.
• iRAP has innovation partnerships with governments, mobility clubs, industry and research groups to ensure innovative ideas from one programme partner can be shared immediately with others for mutual benefit.
• iRAP’s training and accreditation programme is helping to build road safety capacity in countries and ensure iRAP-specification activities are conducted to the same consistently high level of quality worldwide.

Did you know you can donate to help fund iRAP’s vital work supporting partners saving lives across the world? Click here to donate.

Have you checked your iRAP subscriptions lately? Make sure you’re signed up to receive all our newsletters (including training updates and regional news) and register your interests here