4.9 Pathway to Safe System Implementation

Getting started

Understand what a Safe System would look like.

  • Leadership is critical. Gain commitment from heads of agencies to the adoption and implementation of the Safe System approach.
  • Adopt an aspiration for elimination of fatalities and serious injuries in the long-term (making crashes survivable, working towards zero) and identify what will be required to achieve this shift in thinking and its progressive implementation.
  • Conduct a management capacity review and identify an investment plan based on a Safe System approach.
  • Plan and design multi-sectoral Safe System demonstration projects. Focus on corridor action plans and selected national policy reviews with project management and expert assistance over some years (See Chapter 6. Road Safety Targets, Investment Strategies, Plans and Projects ). Establish a multi-agency steering committee and a working group for the project with an agreed lead agency.
  • Establish a reliable national crash data system.

Making progress

  • Continue capacity strengthening: Focus on developing institutional arrangements and the knowledge base of agencies around Safe System approaches to network safety. Determine what knowledge is needed to analyse current system safety shortcomings including policy limitations and identify priority interventions necessary to accelerate the shift towards a Safe System.
  • For LMICs, implement the demonstration projects.
  • Monitor, analyse and evaluate to establish what has been learnt from demonstration corridor projects, plan to extend demonstration project activity across the wider network and implement higher priority policy review findings.

Consolidating activity

  • Implement extension of Safe System demonstration projects across the country, based on the Safe System principles being absorbed and adopted over time within the policies and approaches adopted by road safety agencies.
  • Expand agency project oversight roles to whole of country road safety responsibilities.
  • Benchmark performance against other similar countries.
  • Extend knowledge development to regional and local governments and communities.
  • Identify further enabling measures needed nationally, and further Safe System interventions to be introduced nationally, regionally or locally.
  • Make use of the ITF - World Bank Safe System Framework to assess existing and planned Safe System projects or sets of interventions to help improve their alignment with the Safe System approach and to identify opportunities for improvement.

The following four case studies from New Zealand, Mexico, Paraguay and Slovenia show how each country is improving road safety. New Zealand uses a Safe System approach, while Mexico, Paraguay and Slovenia use iRAP to assess the risk on the road network and enable the development of a safety plan and program.

CASE STUDY - New Zealand: Safe System assessment framework

Road agencies in Australia and New Zealand have adopted the Safe System approach and have been working to implement programmes consistent with achieving Safe System outcomes for more than a decade. Infrastructure must be planned, implemented and maintained to assist in meeting these objectives. This includes the need to assess whether infrastructure planned or existing can meet Safe System objectives. Read more.

CASE STUDY - Mexico: Improving the safety of Mexico's Road Network

As part of one of the largest iRAP assessments in the world, over 65,000 km of road have now been assessed by SCT in Mexico include before and after star ratings across the whole country. The assessment included the carrying out of video-based road surveys integrated with asset and pavement management surveys, star rating the safety of the network to assess the likelihood and severity of crashes, producing a Safer Roads Investment Plan to allocate resources on countermeasures and ‘performance tracking’ to assess changes in the Star Rating performance of the roads over time. Read more.

CASE STUDY - Paraguay: The safety of the road network in Paraguay

Deaths and serious injuries have steadily been increasing in Paraguay, reaching more than 1,300 in year 2012. As part of the National Road Safety Plan 2008-2013, the Ministerio de Transportes y Obras Públicas (MTOP), with support from the Inter-American Development Bank, made the decision to carry out an assessment of 4,000 km of roads in order to understand the road safety situation of the national network and propose countermeasures to be implemented and improve the road safety conditions. Read more.

CASE STUDY - Slovenia: Safety ranking Slovenia's road network

AMZS (Slovenian motoring club) supported by Republika Slovenia Ministrstvo za Infrastrukturo in Prostor, the Slovenian Police service, DARS Povezujemo Slovenijo and Prometnotehniski Institut were committed to improving the safety of Slovenia’s road network. A large-scale project was rolled out which involved risk mapping Slovenia’s roads, carrying out video-based road surveys, star rating the safety of the network to assess the potential for the likelihood and severity of crashes. Read more.