With the support of the GRSF and Bloomberg Philanthropies, opportunities to help make roads in Brazil, China, Egypt and India safe are being found.

In Brazil, the ‘Orange Angel’ vehicle has arrived to join the ‘Brazilian Angel’ vehicle in surveying priority roads.

In China, assessment results for two cities in Yunnan are being finalized now and assessments of rural roads in Shaanxi are underway. Plans are also being shaped for assessments of roads in Dalian city.

In Egypt, the Minister of Transport has endorsed plans assessments of high-risk roads.

In India, baseline Star Ratings are now available for roads in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam and Haryana, and road designs are also being assessed with the goal to achieve at least 3-stars for all road users. 

As part of efforts to curb tremendously high numbers of road deaths and serious injuries, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Bangladesh Roads and Highways Department (RHD) and iRAP have assessed roads that form the backbone of nation’s transport system.

The assessments occurred as part of the ADB’s first ‘road safety pipeline project’, which will ensure that the most urgent and cost-effective road safety programs are adopted as an integral part of the road safety policy of the Government.

During the project, it was estimated that deaths and serious injuries on the 1,300km of roads assessed cost more than US$300 million each year. 

The majority of roads assessed are rated in the highest risk bands: 1- or 2-stars. The reasons for this are clear and include the fact that 80% of the roads where pedestrians are likely to use the road have no formal footpaths.  

However, Safer Roads Investment Plans prepared in the project make the solutions equally clear. Construction of some 75km of footpaths on N4, for instance, could prevent more than 3,000 deaths and serious injuries over 20 years and save US$40 million in crash costs.

The project technical report is available for download.

The two-year SENSOR project brings together 14 countries and builds on outstanding cooperation between automobile clubs, universities and road authorities.

Most countries in South East Europe are constructing new roads or rehabilitating existing roads to achieve mobility benefits. SENSOR enables these countries to use iRAP techniques to target investment so that they can raise the overall level of safety performance of routes in a measurable way. 

SENSOR is co-financed by the South East Europe (SEE) Transnational Cooperation Programme and the European Union.

For any road authority that has completed an iRAP assessment, the IRF’s “Road Safety Across Six Continents Seminar” can help put life-saving plans into practice.

The IRF’s Safer Roads by Design training program is among the most comprehensive in the world, and helps road authorities understand what can be done to meet their commitment to reduce deaths during the Decade of Action for Road Safety. 

The training program focuses on four main topics: Roadside Safety, Work Zone Safety, Vulnerable User Safety, and Road Safety Audits.

For more information on the next program, to be held on April 21-26, 2013 in Orlando, USA, visit:  http://www.irfnews.org/home/ or email: Mike Dreznes (mdreznes@irfnews.org).  

Each day, more than six children die on their way to school in Mexico. iRAP is partnering with Safe Kids Mexico to help create safe environments for children to walk to and from school.

A pilot project is now being undertaken at a school in Mexico City, where a series of serious crashes in neighbouring streets have prompted calls for action.

Working with the University of North Carolina, iRAP is developing a tool that will eventually enable communities around the world to Star Rate roads around their schools and generate safety countermeasure plans.

The project is being supported by the Road Safety Fund.

FIA President Jean Todt and FIAA President Nitin Dossa recently saw first-hand efforts being made to improve safety in one of the world’s most populous countries.

Through the Action for Road Safety Campaign and its member clubs, FIA is working to help to reduce the road deaths in India, estimated to exceed 200,000 each year.

Government officials in Mumbai had the opportunity to view the survey vehicle used in iRAP assessments across seven States, review detailed road death investigation results and consider safety assessments for high-priority roads such as the Mumbai-Goa Highway which was the scene of a horrific crash that recently claimed 37 lives.

Leading news agencies in Mexico, including Reforma and terratv, have put a spotlight on the enormous cost of road crash deaths and serious injuries in the country, estimated to exceed US$50 billion each year.

The reports coincide with National Secretariat of Transport (SCT)-led iRAP assessments of more than 45,000km of roads. The assessments cover the federal highway network, including both toll-free and toll roads. 

In addition to producing road safety Star Ratings for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, pedestrians and bicyclists, it is anticipated that the assessments will identify countermeasures that could cut numbers of deaths and serious injuries by more than 25%.

New road safety inspections are being undertaken by ChinaRAP, a partnership between the Research Institute of Highway (RIOH), Ministry of Transport, and iRAP. 

The assessments involve inspections of urban roads in Mengzi and Jianshui (Yunnan) and highways in Shaanxi, and build on similar work already undertaken in Anhui.

The ChinaRAP road safety assessments will help guide multi-million dollar upgrades to the roads, which are financed by local governments and the World Bank and Asian Development Bank respectively.

In parallel to the assessments, ChinaRAP has also begun collaborating with other partners in the Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded Road Safety in 10 Countries Project (RS10). The collaboration is exploring ways that infrastructure improvements can complement efforts to reduce drink-driving rates and speeding in the cities of Dalian and Suzhuo.