Hundreds participate in knowledge sharing event

May 16, 2012 | News

Hundreds of road-safety experts, practitioners, advocates and senior government officials gathered in Thailand for the GRSP Asia Seminar and iRAP Workshop.

The seminar and workshop provided an opportunity for local experts to share their experience in initiatives such as the Building ChinaRAP project, star rating designs in the Indian State of Karnataka and KiwiRAP assessments in New Zealand strategy.

At the event, the iRAP Asia Pacific Star Performer award was jointly received by the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Automobile Association of the Philippines for their outstanding commitment to safety.  

Engineers from the Philippines department of highways are now conducting site visits on three demonstration corridors, taking them a step closer to implementing iRAP safety recommendations – and saving lives.

Presentations from the event are available on the iRAP website and the GRSP website.

Road safety must be a priority at Rio+20

May 15, 2012 | News

iRAP has joined other leading organizations calling for road safety to be made a priority at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012. 

The publication of a statement by the organizations coincided with a Donor and Policy Forum in New York. At the event, a new report by Kevin Watkins of the Brookings Institute was published, making the case for inclusion of road safety and a ‘people first’ approach to transport policy in the Rio framework.

There was a significant breakthrough recently when a proposal by the Russian Federation to include road safety ‘as an integral part of sustainable development’ was agreed by the US, European Union, G77 and China during negotiations on draft documentation. 

To support calls for road safety to be made a development priority, visit: http://www.makeroadssafe.org/takeaction/Pages/homepage.aspx.

Agustin and Morgan join efforts in Latin America

May 14, 2012 | News

Agustin Centeno and Morgan Fletcher have joined iRAP’s efforts to make roads safe in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Agustin (left) brings 10 years experience at the Mexican Institute of Transport to his role of Senior Road Safety Engineer. At IMT, Agustin was heavily involved in road safety audits and training. He also led much of the analysis work in the recent Pacific Corridor risk assessments.

Morgan (right) joins iRAP as Road Safety Engineer on a voluntary basis, and is one of a number of young engineers who have expressed interest in developing their experience in a foreign country and making a contribution to international road safety. Prior to joining the team, Morgan worked for almost five years with AECOM as a transport and traffic engineer in Australia.

Agustin and Morgan will each play a critical role assessing more than 45,000km of roads in Mexico, representing around 10% of the nation’s roads, and in projects through Latin America and the Caribbean.

IMT, MIROS and TRL become iRAP Centres of Excellence

May 7, 2012 | News

The Mexican Institute of Transport (IMT), the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) and TRL in the United Kingdom have recently become iRAP Centres of Excellence. 

The establishment of iRAP Centres of Excellence around the world is designed to help build technical knowledge for road assessment programmes and extend the reach of the programmes.  

The Centres are peak organisations that have a demonstrated excellence in road safety engineering and are focused on activities for the public good.  

ARRB Group in Australia was the first iRAP Centre of Excellence. 

EuroRAP: a decade of safety assessments

May 7, 2012 | News

Over the past decade, EuroRAP has grown from a four-country pilot to a major force for change in more than 20 countries.

EuroRAP will formally celebrate its 10th anniversary on May 22-24, 2012 at the annual General Assembly and Plenary sessions. The meetings are being hosted by Founder Members ADAC at their headquarters in Munich, Germany, where the first EuroRAP meetings took place.  

The event will begin with a one day conference (speaking programme currently being finalised). For more information, contact Jo Marden at jo.marden@eurorap.org.