The Government of Brazil is welcoming feedback on its new draft Road Safety Guide for School Environments, an important reference tool which aims to transform road safety around schools for vulnerable children and adolescents. It recommends Star Rating for Schools as a methodological approach to collect technical data and assess road safety in school zones, combined with community perceptions.

Aligned with the National Plan for the Reduction of Traffic Deaths and Injuries (PNATRANS), the developing School Zones Guide will become the national guideline for all road infrastructure projects occurring in school environments in the country.

The practical guide includes recommended actions to ensure safe travel for youth, diagnosis of road safety issues, community consultation, engineering countermeasures, management, traffic enforcement, and monitoring and maintenance – incorporating best practices from Brazil and abroad.

The use of Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) is recommended to measure, manage and communicate the risk children are exposed to on their journey to school. SR4S partners have already assessed 2,475 schools in 84 countries, influencing the safety of school journeys for over half a million students.

Suggestions and feedback on the draft guide are welcomed, with the consultation now open.

About BrazilRAP

The Brazil Government instituted a Five Year Permanent Agenda for Road Safety, with iRAP included as the safety metric for road infrastructure. The BrazilRAP Road Assessment Programme, hosted by DNIT, has been certified with the inov@BR seal from the Brazilian Ministry of Infrastructure. BrazilRAP activity has assessed 132,277km of roads and designs and 42 schools, influencing the safety of US$13 billion of life-saving infrastructure investment across the country. Brazil’s National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT) was awarded the iRAP Gary Liddle Memorial Trophy in 2023, presented to the world’s best performing road authority eliminating high-risk roads. In just 20 months, DNIT supported by local partners and iRAP, Star Rated the country’s extensive 57,000 km network, providing essential data to identify high-risk road segments and develop Safer Roads Investment Plans for each State that prioritised cost-effective engineering countermeasures to improve road safety. With a planned investment of BRL 18 billion, the BrazilRAP project expects to prevent more than 150,000 serious injuries and fatalities over a 20-year period with an economic benefit of BRL 45 billion.

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