Road
Commercial Vehicle On-Board Safety Systems
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.
Policies to Extend the Life of Road Assets
20 December 2018
- Introduce a proactive approach for the maintenance of road assets.
- Build a proactive, data-driven approach to the maintenance of road assets.
- Strive for continuous professionalisation in road asset management.
- Move from managing the assets to cross-asset management.
- Adopt regulatory frameworks that treat the use of road assets as an economic input.
- Implement infrastructure pricing for trucks to improve cost recovery.
- Better understand the reasons for non-compliance with truck weight limits.
- Focus on positive incentives for efficiency in regulatory and compliance frameworks.
- Develop use cases and business models for the digital infrastructure of truck traffic management.
- Create incentives for the logistics sector to implement truck traffic management.
- Improve awareness of the mutual impact that policies have on the environmental performance of road freight transport and extending the lifespan of road assets.
- Focus on creating a comprehensive regulatory environment rather than on individual measures.
The Social Impacts of Road Pricing
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.
Private Investment in Transport Infrastructure: Dealing with Uncertainty in Contracts
21 June 2018
- Pursue private investment in infrastructure on the merits of improved efficiency.
- Invest more into upfront preparation of projects to reduce inefficient risk pricing by suppliers.
- Undertake a comprehensive analysis of how to assist suppliers.
- The pursuit of certainty in delivery should be balanced against cost.
- Stimulate innovation through early contractor involvement or alliancing, not public-private partnerships.
- Avoid transferring demand risk to public-private partnerships if service levels do not strongly impact demand.
- Bundle and cross-fund public-private partnerships to reduce demand risk.
- Adopt the regulatory asset base model where competition is absent or demand not strongly endogenous.
- Introduce a transparent public accounting standard to maximise the value for money of private investment.
- Foster competitive markets to achieve cost-effective infrastructure.
- Pursue data collection on how contract design affects project outcomes.
- Support the development of an evidence-supported procurement tool.
Safer Roads with Automated Vehicles?
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.
Cooperative Mobility Systems and Automated Driving
2 May 2018
- Shared mobility is still a relatively new field but is progressing rapidly. With business models and preferred technologies still in flux, policy makers need to prepare considered responses to these developments without delay.
- Service concepts and technology currently and on the brink of being explored need to consider a range of design domain restrictions, dependencies on infrastructure, operating principles and user interfaces.
- Specific service concepts should be matched to specific operational environments, on a detailed local level as well as across continents and cultures.
- Government action will affect how automated vehicles will impact society. Existing approaches will not be appropriate for long. Their understanding and input will help to balance the debate on whether AVs can indeed alleviate a series of stubborn problems.
Speed and Crash Risk
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Lightening Up: How Less Heavy Vehicles Can Help Cut CO2 Emissions
3 November 2017
- Consider the potential of vehicle mass reduction when designing climate policies.
- Do not rely on vehicle mass reductions alone to achieve the European Union’s target of a 60% transport CO2 reduction.
- Nudge consumers into buying lighter vehicles by emphasising their benefit.
Road Safety Annual Report 2017
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.
Mesurer les avantages socio-économiques des transports
1 October 2017
- Les directives relatives à l’ACA peuvent être élargies pour prendre en compte la fiabilité et certains effets plus larges.
- Des travaux de recherche supplémentaires sont nécessaires sur les avantages en matière de fiabilité afin d’améliorer la confiance dans les résultats.
- Les effets économiques plus larges devraient être étudiés dans les cas où l’on s’attend à ce qu’ils soient importants.
- Des travaux de recherche supplémentaires sont nécessaires sur les effets plus larges à saisir et les outils permettant de le faire.
- L’ACA peut jouer un rôle important dans la prise de décision, mais ne doit pas occuper une place prépondérante.
Managing the Transition to Driverless Road Freight Transport
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
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
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
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
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?
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
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
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.
Sharing Road Safety: Developing an International Framework for Crash Modification Functions
31 May 2012
- Road safety policies should undergo performance and efficiency evaluation. 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 co-operation should aim to capture documentation and reporting of CMF research in a widely available transnational database.
- A concerted effort should be made to publicise 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.
Reporting on Serious Road Traffic Casualties
1 December 2011
- A complete picture of casualty totals from road crashes is needed to fully assess the consequences of road crashes and monitor progress.
- Injury information should complement information on fatal crashes to give a fuller picture of road crashes. Information on injuries should become more important for international comparisons.
- Police data should remain the main source for road crash statistics. However, because of underreporting problems and possible bias (for example with differing rates of reporting by vehicle type), police data should be complemented by hospital data, which are the next most useful source.
- The data from hospital emergency departments, available in some countries, should be monitored regularly and researched to determine if they might shed more light on road casualties.
- The assessment of the severity of injuries should preferably be done by medical professionals, and not by the police officer at the scene of the crash.
- Medical staff should be trained in order to systematically classify (road traffic) injuries using ICD International Classification of Diseases and to assess severities with indices such as the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) or the Maximum Abbreviated Injury (MAIS). This information -- without personal information -- should be made easily available for statistical purposes, policymaking and research.
- Besides police data and hospital data, other data sources are available. These have a limited value on their own, and cannot replace police or hospital data, but can be used to build a more balanced and comprehensive picture, to enrich the main data sources, and as a quality check.
- For linking data, the deterministic method is preferred if a unique personal identifier is available; otherwise the probabilistic method is a good alternative.
- The six assumptions needed to use the capture-recapture method must be considered carefully. Using this method combined with linking police and hospital data may be appropriate to give a fuller picture of road casualties.
- Having an internationally agreed definition of “serious” injuries will help the safety research community to better understand the consequences of road crashes and to monitor progress. Given the existing knowledge and practices, IRTAD proposes to define a ‘seriously injured road casualty’ as a person with injuries assessed at level 3 or more on the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale i.e. "MAIS3+".
Moving Freight with Better Trucks
18 April 2011
- The freight transport task is growing rapidly in most regions and requires effective utilisation of all modes of transport.
- The safety and environmental impacts of road haulage require regulatory intervention for optimal outcomes.
- Compliance can be improved greatly through legislation that assigns responsibility.
- Compliance regimes can be enhanced by exploiting technological innovations.
- A performance based approach to regulation offers the potential to meet community objectives for road freight transport more fully.
- Many higher capacity vehicles have equivalent or even better intrinsic safety characteristics in some respects than most common workhorse trucks.
- Truck crash energies mean safety regulation must pay particular attention to managing truck speeds and driver alertness and impairment.
- Higher capacity vehicles have potential to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
- Higher capacity vehicles can result in fewer vehicle-kilometres travelled.
- The lower unit costs offered by higher productivity trucks could result in increased overall demand for road freight transport and a transfer of freight from other modes.
- Road pricing systems can be developed to manage use of the transport network more efficiently.
- Road infrastructure and trucks need to be developed in concert.
- Significant opportunities for improvement of the regulation of heavy trucks have been identified.