Safer roads and improved road safety capacity are on the horizon for Kenya thanks to a 533km iRAP assessment and collaboration between the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences – University of Zagreb (FPZ) and local partners. FPZ is working as a consultant for the World Bank, and the project is funded by the World Bank’s Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) under Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) 2020-2025.

Kenya is among countries with the highest road crash rates in the world, with the most recent country-reported public data showing 2,965 fatalities in 2016, where 55% of fatal victims were vulnerable road users.

With road infrastructure playing a crucial role in ensuring road safety, it is imperative that high-risk locations are proactively addressed.

FPZ is playing a pivotal role as a consultant in the project, working with the Kenyan National Highways Authority (KeNHA), Kenyan Urban Roads Authority (KURA), Kenyan Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) and National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA).

The main task of the consultancy is to provide road safety support in Kenya by performing a comprehensive iRAP Star Rating road safety analysis on 533km of rural, interurban and urban roads in the country. Follow-up trainings will target local experts and authorities to raise in-country capacity to perform future iRAP assessments.

The project will build on previous partner-led iRAP activity which has assessed 2,613km of roads and designs, and 12 schools, positively influencing the safety of road infrastructure investment. To date, 374 people have been trained in Kenya in iRAP trainings delivered locally and 182 people have benefited from iRAP global and on-line training events.

According to the iRAP Safety Insights Explorer, achieving Target 4 by 2030 in Kenya stands to save over 1 million lives and serious injuries over the 20 year life of road treatments with an economic benefit of USD$32 billion – $10 for every $1 spent.

The above Insights analysis is based on 2016 road traffic deaths as estimated by WHO.

FPZ is an iRAP Centre of Excellence. The Faculty has an iRAP Accredited inspection system and several staff accredited to perform iRAP assessments to the same consistently high level of quality worldwide.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed $500 million since 2007 to support road safety interventions in low- and middle-income countries and cities around the world. 

Images credit: Antony Trivet, Pixabay (Lead Image), FPZ (BIGRS Project graphic) and iRAP (Safety Insights Explorer)