Our latest global programme metrics demonstrate the incredible power of iRAP partnerships for safer roads – impact in 178 countries, 3.6 million km of road safety assessments, 69,000 people trained and USD$101 billion of infrastructure investment made safer … plus more.

Twice a year, in June and December, we analyse our global systems and consult with partners to prepare a comprehensive analysis of iRAP partner activity across the globe to eliminate high-risk roads. It’s an important task to guide and quantify collaborative impact and return on investment, and celebrate success across the world.

Thanks to the support of our major donor the FIA Foundation; programme supporters Global Road Safety Facility, 3M, Prudence Foundation, Aleatica Foundation, Millennium Challenge Corporation, European Investment Bank and FedEx; and incredible work from our 30,300 partners worldwide, the results as at 31 December, are inspiring:

Download the above iRAP Metrics Infographic in English, Portuguese or Spanish.

Some highlights include:

• 1.8 million km of roads and designs have been Star Rated and 1.8 million km have been Crash Risk Mapped in 126 countries, helping to inform $101 billion of safer roads upgrades for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and vehicle occupants.
• In the last 12 months, Star Rating assessments have been conducted in 24 countries, with:
  • Very large assessments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the world’s largest ever at 73,000km), 22,000km in Colombia, 15,000km in Thailand, and >50,000km of assessments in Australia (including the world’s largest AiRAP assessment in Western Australia). The results of the 54,500km assessment in Brazil are shaping strategic investment to prevent more than 150,000 serious injuries and fatalities over a 20-year period with an economic benefit of BRL 45 billion.
  • A first Star Rating assessment was completed in Jersey, and assessments of >1,000km were also undertaken in India, USA, Kazakhstan, Slovakia and Serbia since June.
  • In total, 7.3 million km of full Star Rating analysis and investment scenarios have now been undertaken in iRAP’s free software platform ViDA used by more than 18,000 RAP partners.

ViDA Star Rating assessments map

• Assessing the safety of Thailand’s entire road network last year, ThaiRAP partners also performed 63,000km of light star ratings and first assessments of Thai motorways and 500km of Bangkok city streets.
• Nearly 54,000km of designs have been Star Rated, with highest activity overall in Australia (11,251km), Saudi Arabia (10,154km), Brazil (6,788km) and Tanzania (5,373km). Additional designs are also being made safer supported by other iRAP Tools such as the Star Rating Demonstrator, with 5,688 users of the Demonstrator tool in 2023.
• United Kingdom RAP and partners in Spain continue their great efforts risk mapping 54,000km and 30,000km of their networks respectively every year, helping to performance track investment in safety measures. The insights have supported the UK Government’s April announcement of a £47.5 million investment on 27 roads on England’s local road network to prevent deaths and serious injuries. Italy, Kazakhstan and Australia also completed Risk Mapping in 2023.
• The Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) programme continues to inspire across the world. 1,356 schools have been assessed across 70 countries, impacting the safety of an estimated 418,914 students. SR4S assessments were completed for the first time in Papua New Guinea, Uzbekistan and Belgium last year. Vietnam leads the world with the highest number of schools assessed (238), followed by The Philippines (125) and India (107). Enhancements have been launched with the SR4S model integrating the latest research and user experience for improved results; updates to the SR4S mobile app with availability now on Google Play and the Apple Store; and the launch and integration of the Youth Engagement App (YEA) as part of the Botnar Ai&Me project to capture supplementary youth perceptions of risk.
• And really cool… a USD$2 million Google.org grant was awarded to iRAP to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI), SR4S and AiRAP partnerships to scale up 3-star or better school journeys in Vietnam and the world.
• 63,193 people have been trained in 164 countries since 2005 (adding nearly 6,000 in the last six months). For the first time, people have received iRAP training in the Bahamas, Chad, Central African Republic and Taiwan. Training events have also been held locally for the first time in Armenia, Lithuania, Namibia, Nigeria and Rwanda. Courses have been delivered in 20 languages, with a recent addition of Arabic. A new #RAPKnowledgeLIVE programme kicked off last year, with 6 webinars hosted to boost capacity in the use of our tools and resources, and share partner success. Check out our training programme at https://irap.org/training/, with many courses available in online, self-paced format.
• iRAP’s Accreditation Programme is reaching 49 countries. 235 practitioners and 16 systems are currently iRAP Accredited, helping to ensure iRAP specification services are delivered to the same consistent global standard no matter where you are in the world. The last six months has seen the first accreditation of practitioners in Morocco, China, Uzbekistan and New Zealand. 100% of the feedback forms returned on our iRAP Accredited Practitioners rated their performance as excellent or very good. Agilysis, Anditi and TomTom are Accredited AiRAP data suppliers capable of producing data for particular attributes and regions in accordance with the iRAP Coding Manual.
• iRAP’s Innovation Framework is supporting 117 partners in projects and initiatives to create the global and local tools to meet local needs and ensure continuous improvement of the iRAP offering.
  • iRAP is supporting the IVORY network which has opened 15 fully funded PhD positions covering all aspects of AI in road safety – engineering, human factors, computer science, and ethics of technology.
  • Lots of activity has occurred in the area of safe cycling and light mobility. Four trusted suppliers are now in place to support CycleRAP projects and the CycleRAP Demonstrator tool was launched in five languages to support the quick assessment of cycling infrastructure safety.  A pilot project was completed with Fundacion Mapfre, the Union Cyclist Internationale and PTV to design safer streets and networks for cycling and light mobility in the five cities of Barcelona, Bogotá, Fayetteville, Madrid and São Paulo.
  • ViDA now includes an extra set of urban countermeasures thanks to a project by the Road Safety Foundation, funded by The Road Safety Trust.
  • iRAP Safety Insights Explorer, used extensively by partners globally to understand the human and economic impact of road crash injury, how safe their roads are and the business case for investment, will soon be updated with new World Health Organisation data from the December-released Global Status Report on Road Safety.
• Since June, an additional six countries published national strategies or action plans with iRAP targets for safer road infrastructure bringing the total policy sum to 76. Recent additions include Malawi, Thailand, Cayman Islands, Saudi Arabia and Georgia. See the global showcase at https://irap.org/policies-into-practice/.
• It’s been a busy time in the projects space. 52 Strategic Project partnerships were supported in 2023, including 32 new projects. Partnership projects were supported in Tanzania, Colombia, Ecuador, Australia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Senegal, Chile, India, Italy, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, as well as projects with global impact. Some notable multi-national collaborations include: the long-term support programme partnership underway between iRAP and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) from 2022-2026 to stimulate safer roads progress in low- and middle-income countries; the EU-funded project PHOEBE which aims to develop an integrated, dynamic, human-centred, predictive safety assessment framework for vulnerable road users in urban areas in three pilot cities/counties of Athens, Valencia and West Midlands; the ELABORATOR project for designing sustainable urban mobility towards climate neutral cities in Europe; and completion of the GRSF and iRAP’s Target 3 Project to evaluate countries’ progress in achieving UN Target 3 for all new roads to achieve a 3-star rating or better by 2030.
• KSARAP launched in December in Saudi Arabia. As well as supporting our established ‘x’RAP programmes, interest for new RAPs is being supported in Korea, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, Malawi and Vietnam.
• iRAP communications has achieved 1.8 million touchpoints this year with our RAP community across multiple social media, online and direct marketing comms.

iRAP CEO Rob McInerney said, “The vision of our charity is for a world free of high-risk roads. I’m so proud of the achievements of all of our iRAP donors, partners and team members around the world. By working together to implement the free iRAP tools, training and assessments we are informing investment and upgrades that are making roads safer and saving lives in so many countries across the world.  Our innovation partnerships are also meeting local needs and shaping the road safety products for the future.

“Measuring and sharing our collaborative impact is so important to guide our Partnerships for 2030 Impact. Working together we can ensure that evidence-based investment leads to the elimination of high-risk roads worldwide and we achieve the UN SDG Target to halve global road deaths and injuries by 2030,” he said.

Managing iRAP’s global programme is made so much easier thanks to our much-appreciated Partner Management System iRAP Connect, made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of FedEx, FIA Foundation and NTT. Insights are shared with partners via the iRAP Partner Portal.

To access the iRAP Partner Portal, email judy.williams@irap.org.

For an update on metrics for your country, visit https://irap.org/about-us/where-we-work/.

For an overview of iRAP news in the last 6 months, visit https://irap.org/latest-news/.

To share feedback, take iRAP’s Global Partner Survey.