Road
The Freight Space Race: Curbing the Impact of Freight Deliveries in Cities
Corporate Partnership Board Report, Policy Insights,
6 December 2022
- Manage curb space with a focus on the needs of both passengers and goods transport.
- Apply access restrictions for delivery vehicles in urban areas while considering business practices.
- Use more logistics data to better monitor and manage freight flows.
Monitoring Progress in Urban Road Safety: 2022 Update
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
16 October 2022
- Ensure consistent collection of reliable urban road safety data.
- Create urban traffic observatories that collect both general mobility data and road safety data.
- Set ambitious reduction targets for the number of traffic crash casualties in cities.
- Focus on protecting vulnerable road users on urban streets.
- Measure crash risks for vulnerable road users with appropriate indicators.
- Adopt an integrated urban mobility plan based on Safe System principles.
The Safe System Approach in Action
Research Report, Policy Insights,
29 June 2022
- Commit to a long-term Safe System initiative
- Build Safe System initiatives on data and evidence of effectiveness
- Start at a manageable level of activity and then scale up
- Build capacity for practical implementation of the Safe System approach, especially in low- and middle-income countries
- Use pilot projects to further test and develop the Safe System framework
- Use the framework to assess projects, organisations and policies, identify gaps, and plan effective strategies
Artificial Intelligence in Proactive Road Infrastructure Safety Management
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
14 December 2021
- Develop a competitive market for the sharing and monetising of traffic and mobility data.
- Do not wait for real-time data before developing risk maps.
- Mandate the sharing of aggregate vehicle data.
- Learn from other fields and best practice for data sharing and privacy protection.
- Support research and innovation towards trusted and explainable AI.
- Align new tools with precise policy objectives.
- Develop new skills and digital infrastructure.
- Clarify regulatory frameworks for data protection and digital security.
- Design user-friendly risk-mapping tools.
Motorway Safety in Korea
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
6 December 2021
- Develop a proactive approach to motorway safety.
- Promote work-related road safety in road haulage companies and in other sectors.
- Review the cost-benefit evaluation of road safety investment.
- Create an observatory to map and monitor unsafe situations and behaviours.
- Review the legal and operational frameworks for speed enforcement.
- Set high vehicle safety standards inspired by those developed in the European Union.
- Upgrade the physical and digital infrastructure for the adoption of connected and automated driving.
- Set guidance and standards for the rapid deployment of Co‑operative-ITS services in Korea.
- The KEC should invest in solutions that protect road users, from the most traditional to the most innovative.
Monitoring Progress in Urban Road Safety
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
5 November 2020
- Set ambitious targets to reduce the number of casualties.
- Create joint mobility and safety observatories in cities.
- Put the focus on protecting vulnerable road users.
- Measure the safety of vulnerable road users in cities with appropriate indicators.
Safe Micromobility
Corporate Partnership Board Report, Policy Insights,
17 February 2020
- Allocate protected space for micromobility and keep pedestrians safe.
- To make micromobility safe, focus on motor vehicles.
- Regulate low-speed e-scooters and e-bikes as bicycles, higher-speed micro-vehicles as mopeds.
- Collect data on micro-vehicle trips and crashes.
- Proactively manage the safety performance of street networks.
- Include micromobility in training for road users.
- Tackle drunk driving and speeding across all vehicle types.
- Eliminate incentives for micromobility riders to speed.
- Improve micro-vehicle design.
- Reduce wider risks associated with shared micromobility operations.
New Directions for Data-Driven Transport Safety
Corporate Partnership Board Report, Policy Insights,
22 May 2019
- Develop standards and platforms for the collection and sharing of safety-critical vehicle data.
- Ensure privacy in the use of safety-critical data.
- Refine the applications of surrogate traffic safety metrics.
- Harness Big Data for road safety but beware of biases.
- Review training needs for road safety professionals.
- Empower transport users and workers through mechanisms to report safety concerns.
- Make safety-critical vehicle data available for telematics applications.
- Find ways to integrate smartphones into Cooperative-ITS to benefit all users.
- Improve and link police and hospital data on road crash injuries.
- Prevent, detect and signal driver distractions.
- Revise trigger mechanisms for automatic crash notification and event data recording.
- Share data to enforce limits on driving hours in the gig economy.
- Favour more accurate and relevant geo-spatial accuracy for safety applications.
- Update legal frameworks to account for ubiquitous sensing data and their use in improving safety.
High Capacity Transport
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
1 May 2019
- Use the potential of High Capacity Vehicles to increase transport efficiency, reduce traffic volumes, lower emissions and achieve better safety outcomes.
- Use well-monitored trials to introduce High Capacity Vehicles on a road network.
- Configure High Capacity Vehicles for the specific area in which they will operate.
Road Safety in European Cities
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
10 April 2019
- Develop mobility plans and observatories in cities.
- Use appropriate indicators to measure the safety of vulnerable road users.
- Collect traffic casualty data from hospitals and from the population, not only from police records.
- Improve the comparability of road safety statistics. Adopt ambitious targets for casualty number reduction.
- Focus on protecting vulnerable road users.
- Conduct further research on crash risks.
- Local government should demonstrate leadership.
- Gather evidence that can serve as fundament of road safety policy.
- Create strong Metropolitan Transport Authorities.
Commercial Vehicle On-Board Safety Systems
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
24 January 2019
- Ensure international harmonisation of regulation for autonomous trucks.
- Use the flexibility within existing regulatory frameworks to accommodate vehicle automation technologies.
- Weigh the advantages, disadvantages and limits to stretching existing regulatory frameworks to cover safe vehicle automation.
- Consider data-led approaches for regulating vehicles with high automation levels. Consider government intervention to address labour issues if and where they arise.
The Social Impacts of Road Pricing
Roundtable Report, Policy Insights,
10 October 2018
- Make demand management and congestion reduction the primary objective of road pricing.
- Differentiate road pricing by location and time.
- Combine road pricing and public transport planning to improve efficiency.
- Examine the combined effects of scheme design and mitigation to understand distributional impacts.
- Consider the use of discounts and exemptions carefully.
- Develop road pricing as part of an intervention package to achieve better utilisation of urban space.
- Reconcile economic, practical and political aspects in the design of road pricing schemes.
- Differentiate charges and consider adopting a rules-based pricing approach.
Safer Roads with Automated Vehicles?
Corporate Partnership Board Report, Policy Insights,
22 May 2018
- Reinforce the Safe System approach to ensure automated vehicles are used safely.
- Apply Vision Zero thinking to automated driving.
- Avoid safety performance being used to market competing automated vehicles.
- Carefully assess the safety impacts of systems that share driving tasks between humans and machines.
- Require reporting of safety-relevant data from automated vehicles.
- Develop and use a staged testing regime for automated vehicles.
- Establish comprehensive cybersecurity principles for automated driving.
- Ensure the functional isolation of safety-critical systems and that connectivity does not compromise cybersecurity or safety.
- Provide clear and targeted messaging of vehicle capabilities.
Speed and Crash Risk
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
28 March 2018
- Reduce the speed on roads as well as speed differences between vehicles.
- Set speed limits according to Safe System principles.
- Improve infrastructure and enforcement if speed limits are to be increased.
- Use automatic speed control to reduce speed effectively.
Alcohol-Related Road Casualties in Official Crash Statistics
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
6 February 2018
- Review how data on alcohol-related road crashes is collected.
- Aim for a systematic alcohol testing of every road user actively involved in a serious crash.
- Use statistical analysis methods to better estimate the number of alcohol-related road fatalities.
- Harmonise definitions of alcohol-related road casualties.
- Conduct future research on how to measure alcohol-related road crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists.
Benchmarking Road Safety in Latin America
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
15 December 2017
- Create a strong national lead agency for road safety.
- Set up a road safety observatory and improve road safety data systems for better road safety outcomes.
- Develop a national road safety strategy with ambitious target.
- Prioritise safety improvements for motorcycle riders.
- Give priority to pedestrians’ safety needs.
- Address speeding, drink driving and non-seat belt wearing.
- Tackle weaknesses in post-crash management.
- Invest in safe road infrastructure and adopt UN regulations on vehicle safety.
Améliorer la sécurité des usagers des deux roues motorisés
Research Report, Policy Insights,
13 November 2017
- Mettre en œuvre une approche Système Sûr qui tienne compte des besoins de sécurité des deux-roues motorisés.
- Engager toutes les parties prenantes dans une responsabilité partagée pour la sécurité des deux-roués motorisés.
- Intégrer les besoins des deux-roues motorisés dans la politique de transport.
- Développer une boîte à outils de mesures pour améliorer la sécurité des deux-roues motorisés.
- Promouvoir des comportements adaptés de la part des motocyclistes et plus généralement de tous les usagers de la route.
- Rendre le port du casque obligatoire pour tous les usagers des deux-roues motorises.
- Améliorer les caractéristiques de sécurité des véhicules.
- Réduire le risque des usagers de deux-roues motorisés grâce à l’aménagement de routes lisibles et clémentes.
- Conduire davantage de recherche pour améliorer notre connaissance de la mobilité des deux-roues motorises et des mécanismes d’accident.
Cero Muertes y Lesiones de Gravedad por Accidentes de Tránsito
Research Report, Policy Insights,
6 November 2017
- Pensar en vías públicas seguras, no en vías públicas más seguras.
- Ofrecer un liderazgo fuerte y sostenido para el cambio de paradigma hacia un Sistema Seguro.
- Promover un sentido de urgencia para impulsar el cambio.
- Sustentar los objetivos ambiciosos con metas operacionales concretas.
- Establecer responsabilidad compartida por la seguridad vial.
- Aplicar entre los actores interesados de la seguridad vial una manera de trabajar centrada en los resultados.
- Aprovechar todas las partes de un Sistema Seguro para obtener un mayor efecto global y de manera tal que si una de las partes falla, las otras partes aún impedirán que ocurra un daño grave.
- Usar un Sistema Seguro para hacer que el tránsito en las ciudades sea seguro para los usuarios vulnerables de la vía pública.
- Desarrollar capacidades de Sistema Seguro en los países de ingresos bajos y medios para mejorar la seguridad vial en aquellos lugares del mundo donde el número de vehículos motorizados crece rápidamente.
- Apoyar la recopilación, análisis e investigación de datos sobre la circulación vial como Sistema Seguro.
Benchmarking de la seguridad vial en América Latina
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
6 November 2017
- Crear un organismo líder nacional fuerte para la seguridad vial.
- Establecer un observatorio de seguridad vial y mejorar los sistemas de datos de seguridad vial para obtener mejores resultados.
- Desarrollar una estrategia nacional de seguridad vial con objetivos ambiciosos.
- Dar preferencia a los mejoramientos de seguridad para los motociclistas.
- Priorizar las necesidades de seguridad de los peatones.
- Abordar el exceso de velocidad, conducir en estado de ebriedad y no llevar puesto el cinturón de seguridad.
- Hacer frente a las debilidades en la gestión de la atención posterior a una colisión vial.
- Invertir en infraestructura vial segura y adoptar las regulaciones de la ONU sobre seguridad de vehícuos.
Road Safety Annual Report 2017
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
9 October 2017
- Analyse the reasons for the relatively poor road safety performance in 2015 and 2016, with a view to adapt road safety policies.
- Strengthen efforts to improve the road safety data available for low- and middleincome countries.
- Collect more accurate data on serious injuries from road crashes.
- Enforce drink-driving laws, speed limits and the wearing of seat belts and motorcycle helmets.
- Take action to ensure a safe mobility for an ageing population.
6th IRTAD Conference: Better Road Safety Data for Better Safety Outcomes. Programme
Promotional Publication,
4 October 2017
6ème Conférence IRTAD: De meilleures de donnees pour une amelioration de la securite routiere. Programme
Promotional Publication,
20 August 2017
Managing the Transition to Driverless Road Freight Transport
Case-Specific Policy Analysis, Policy Insights,
30 May 2017
- Continue driverless truck pilot projects to test vehicles, network technology and communications protocols.
- Set international standards, road rules and vehicle regulations for self-driving trucks.
- Establish a temporary transition advisory board for the trucking industry.
- Consider a temporary permit system to manage the speed of adoption and to support a just transition for displaced drivers, while ensuring fair access to markets.
Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries
Research Report, Policy Insights,
1 October 2016
- Think safe roads, not safer roads.
- Provide strong, sustained leadership for the paradigm shift to a Safe System.
- Foster a sense of urgency to drive change.
- Underpin aspirational goals with concrete operational targets.
- Establish shared responsibility for road safety.
- Apply a results-focussed way of working among road safety stakeholders.
- Leverage all parts of a Safe System for greater overall effect and so that if one part fails the other parts will still prevent serious harm.
- Use a Safe System to make city traffic safe for vulnerable road users.
- Build Safe System capacity in low and middle-income countries to improve road safety in rapidly motorising parts of the world.
- Support data collection, analysis and research on road traffic as a Safe System.
Road Safety Annual Report 2016
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
14 July 2016
- Focus road safety policy on vulnerable road users.
- Enforce drink driving laws, speed limits and the wearing of seat belts and motorcycle helmets.
- Analyse the reasons behind the relatively poor road safety performance in 2015 and adapt policies.
Improving Safety for Motorcycle, Scooter and Moped Riders
Research Report, Policy Insights,
7 October 2015
- The powered two-wheeler population is increasing and plays a significant role in mobility.
- Powered two-wheeler (PTW) riders are at far greater risk than car drivers.
- Poor perception and control are frequent failures that lead to PTW crashes.
- A Safe System approach is required to improve the safety of PTWs.
- The helmet is the most important source of protection against severe injuries and death.
- Advances in car technology can also bring positive safety benefits to PTW users. There are a number of new technologies, such as forward collision warning, blind spot information and vulnerable road user protection systems, which can prevent collisions, including those with PTW riders, pedestrians and cyclists.
Road Infrastructure Safety Management
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
6 October 2015
- Benchmark road infrastructure against good practices in other countries.
- Implement new minimum safety standards for road infrastructure.
- Continue evaluation and research to quantify safety impacts of planning decisions.
- Implement suitable Road Infrastructure Safety Management procedures for each stage of road development including planning design, pre-opening and full operation.
- Make Road Infrastructure Safety Management procedures legally binding.
- Involve both road and health authorities when developing road accident data bases.
- Assure adequate institutional management capacity and investment levels.
- Use existing tools and guidelines; adopt second-best solutions where state-of-the-art solutions are not feasible.
- Identify the Road Safety Infrastructure Management procedures that fit specific needs and understand barriers to implementation.
- Share good practices of Road infrastructure Safety Management procedures and intervention measures.
- Monitor the safety performance of road infrastructure.
- Develop self-explaining roads.
Why Does Road Safety Improve When Economic Times Are Hard?
IRTAD, Policy Insights,
5 October 2015
- There is clear evidence that when economic growth declines, and particularly when unemployment increases, road safety improves.
- The financial and economic crises which started in 2007 were accompanied by marked falls in annual numbers of road deaths in most OECD countries.
- It is important to understand how much of the accelerated reduction in numbers of deaths during the downturn that began in 2008 was attributable to the changed economic conditions.
- The economic downturn in 2009-10 may well have contributed to about two-thirds of the decrease in fatalities from 2008.
- The recent downturn has had repercussions on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and unemployment rate and has influenced the number of road deaths through a reduction in vehicle kilometres driven, especially by young men and by heavy goods vehicles, a reduction in speeding and in drink-driving, and a reduction in learning to drive by young men.
- Policy makers need to take careful account of these results when setting road safety targets and when designing road safety strategies for the future.
Cycling, Health and Safety
Research Report, Policy Insights,
19 December 2013
- Insufficient evidence supports causality for the “safety in numbers” phenomenon – policies increasing the number of cyclists should be accompanied by risk-reduction actions.
- Efforts must be made to harmonise definitions of bicycle accident terminology so as to be able to make reliable international comparisons on cyclist safety.
- National authorities should set standards for, collect or otherwise facilitate the collection of data on non-fatal cycling crashes based on police reports and, in either a systematic or periodic way, on hospital records.
- Authorities seeking to improve cyclists’ safety should adopt the Safe System approach - policy should focus on improving the inherent safety of the traffic system, not simply on securing marginal improvements for cyclists in an inherently unsafe system.
- Authorities should establish top-level plans for cycling and cycling safety and should ensure high-level coordination among relevant government agencies to ensure that cycling grows without aggravating safety performance.
- Speed management acts as “hidden infrastructure” protecting cyclists and should be included as an integral part of cycle safety strategies.
- Cyclists should not be the only target of cycling safety policies – motorists are at least as important to target.
- Where appropriate, traffic speeds should be limited to less than 30km/hr where bicycles and motorised traffic mix but care should be taken so that speed control devices do not create hazards for cyclists.
Sharing Road Safety: Developing an International Framework for Crash Modification Functions
Research Report, Policy Insights,
1 December 2012
- Road safety policies should undergo performance and efficiency evaluations. Such evaluations cannot be undertaken without Crash Modification Functions (CMFs). Evaluation processes should be documented to ensure they are transparent.
- Research conducted to develop CMFs should follow the guidance provided in this report and, in particular, provide specific information that describes the countermeasure under consideration, the safety issue being addressed and the roadway environment in which it was tested.
- It is recommended that an international group be composed under an existing organization (e.g. Transportation Research Board, World Road Association, etc.) to foster dialog among researchers and practitioners on CMF research and reporting standards with the aim of increasing transferability of results. Coordination of research across countries on top priority countermeasures should be considered.
- International cooperation should aim to capture documentation and reporting of CMF research in a widely available transnational database.
- A concerted effort should be made to publicize the benefits of decision-making based on CMFs. This should take the form of: presentations and workshops at transport, injury prevention and health conferences; press releases; letters to political leaders and senior bureaucrats.