The Safe System Approach in Action

Road crashes kill over 1.3 million people every year worldwide and seriously injure millions more. A Safe System approach to road safety can drastically reduce road deaths – but how can it actually be put in place? This report provides experience-based guidance on implementing the Safe System approach. 

The report also presents lessons from 17 case studies of road-safety interventions with a Safe System component. The case studies reveal no single recipe for successful implementation. Instead, they point to a variety of approaches conditioned by national and local contexts, and the crucial role of robust institutional governance and co-operation between partners in any successful Safe System intervention. 

Read the case studies (PDF):

• Highway improvements in Karnataka State, India
• The Speed Management Programme in Bogotá, Colombia
• Vision Zero for Youth in Mexico City
• The SARSAI programme in sub-Saharan Africa
• Improving pedestrian safety in województwo małopolskie, Poland
• Evaluating municipal road safety performance indicators in Korea
• The Logitrans approach to road safety
• The New Car Assessment Program for Southeast Asian Countries
• Introducing a universal call and dispatch number in Georgia
• Improving post-crash capacity in Moldova
• Safe System Assessments in New Zealand
• The Trauma-Ouaga Project, Burkina Faso
• The Caltrans Pedestrian Systemic Safety Improvement Program
• The Slow Zones, Safe Zones programme in Pleiku City, Viet Nam
• Road-safety management and capacity building in Cameroon
• Sustainable Safety in the Netherlands