3M to provide support for iRAP’s Star Rating for Schools programme.

LONDON / ST. PAUL, MN (June 9, 2020) – The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and 3M announced today that 3M has become a Global Programme Partner in iRAP’s Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) programme.  3M will provide an annual contribution to support the programme and its goal of ensuring that children are able to travel safely to and from school.

Road crashes are the biggest killer of young people worldwide and the life-changing impact of injury affects children all around the world.  iRAP developed the SR4S system as an evidence-based tool for measuring, managing and communicating children’s exposure to risk on a journey to school.  It supports quick interventions that help save lives and prevent serious injuries.  SR4S allows the easy assessment of road infrastructure and speed management features and calculates a Star Rating where 1-star is the least safe and 5-star is the safest.

iRAP is a UK registered charity with an objective of international promotion of road safety improvement and road quality for public benefit.  iRAP has a vision for a world free of high-risk roads.

“Our children deserve a safe journey to and from school. If we can make our roads safe for kids, they will be safe for everyone,” said iRAP CEO Rob McInerney.  “Providing the SR4S tools for free use worldwide will maximise our potential to save children’s lives. 3M’s great support will help make this happen.”

3M is a global corporation who applies science in collaborative ways to improve lives and help solve the world’s toughest challenges.  3M has been a technology and solutions leader in road safety for over 50 years.

“We are very pleased to partner with iRAP and together advance road safety globally,” said Dr. Daniel Chen, Vice President, 3M Transportation Safety Division. “Through the SR4S process and implementation of simple and effective treatments like footpaths, safe crossings, line marking and signage, iRAP and their Lead Partners are making an impact on the lives of school children around the world.”

The SR4S programme officially launched at the 3^rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety which took place in Sweden in February 2020.  3M joins SR4S as the first of five Global Programme Partners that will support the SR4S Programme, along with the Founding Sponsor FedEx and Major Donor FIA Foundation.

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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. iRAP’s Vaccines for Roads is a valuable online resource unlocking the potential of the world’s largest road infrastructure safety database to explore the human and financial impact of road injury, how safe the world’s roads are and provide the Business Case for Safer Roads. The charity has influenced the safety of over USD$76 billion dollars of infrastructure investment, has Star Rated over 1 million kms of roads and trained over 22,000 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, Global Road Safety Facility and FedEx.
https://irap.org/

About 3M
At 3M, we apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives daily. With $32 billion in sales, our 96,000 employees connect with customers all around the world. Learn more about 3M’s creative solutions to the world’s problems at www.3M.com or on Twitter @3M or @3MNews.

About Star Rating for Schools

Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) has, thus far, accessed over 770 schools across five continents and was awarded a Prince Michael International Safety Award in 2018.

SR4S is a technical tool and its application will be delivered through the Lead Partner network, world-leading NGO’s involved in school road safety that have been involved in SR4S’s development. These expert NGOs will support those organisations seeking to become delivery partners by undertaking the Star Rating of roads around a school and integrating the approach into their engagement with a school community.

AIP Foundation, Child Health Initiative, Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST), Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA), Gonzalo Rodriguez Foundation, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), International Road Federation (IRF), Safe Kids Worldwide, Youth for Road Safety (YOURS) and the World Resources Institute (WRI)

Governments, Road Safety NGOs, Corporations and local organizations focused on child safety and school road infrastructure can get involved by visiting starratingforschools.org.  Ways to make a positive difference include:

• working with your local Education Department and Road Authority to assess and improve the Star Rating for Schools where you live or work
• using the SR4S approach to demonstrate the safest route to school
• advocating for 3-star or better journeys to school for all kids in support of the Global Road Safety Performance Targets agreed by World Health Organisation Member States
• sponsoring a Lead Partner to develop a targeted programme of engagement, engineering and education for high-risk schools
• using the SR4S tool to assess before and after road infrastructure improvements to quantify the safety gain linked to investment and to celebrate and ribbon-cut success (e.g. new 5-star crossings).
• becoming a SR4S programme delivery partner
• becoming a SR4S donor to support global action and
• following the SR4S success stories by signing up to the newsletter

The Global Programme Partners will ensure the SR4S programme sustainability, allowing partners around the world to benefit from the tool exempt of fees. With this generous contribution, the SR4S Global Programme Coordination will be able to offer free supporting activities such as programme advice, training, quality assurance, software help-desk and ongoing software enhancements and maintenance.

Media Contacts:                      

Briarlea Green (iRAP)
briarlea.green@iRAP.org
+61.417.583.165

Marcia Lozier (3M)
mllozier@mmm.com
1.651.733.3879