Publications

Every year approximately 1.35 million people lose their lives due to road traffic crashes. In many road crashes, speed plays a key role. As a result, managing speed has taken on great importance in cities around the world.

An effective method for reducing speed and improving road safety, especially in high-risk areas, has been to establish low-speed zones. This Low-Speed Zone Guide presents strategies for planning, designing, building, and evaluating low-speed zones. The guide intends to equip communities and decision-makers with the tools to implement low-speed zones that will suit their specific context.

Highlights:

• Traffic crashes are a leading cause of death and serious injury worldwide; most notably, they are the leading cause of death and serious injury among young people aged 5–29. Higher motor vehicle speeds increase the likelihood and severity of crashes.

• Low-speed zones have emerged as one of the most promising strategies for speed management. They can be appropriate in many different contexts and at various scales, as exemplified by case studies of successful projects around the world.

• Low-speed zones in cities need to be well-planned, well-designed, and well-built, to maximize safety and other benefits.

• Physical traffic-calming measures and target speeds of 30 kilometers/hour (km/h) or lower have the greatest proven safety benefits.

• Key considerations for implementation include stakeholder engagement, site selection (including risk: pedestrian/vulnerable road user presence), enforcement, evaluation, and the adaptation of basic principles for low-speed zone design to the local context.

This Road Safety Management Capacity Assessment (RSMCA) seeks to gain a broad understanding of the Government of Vanuatu's road safety management capacity to support its plans to improve road safety outcomes throughout the country. The RSMCA follows the seven critical road safety institutional management functions (Bliss and Breen 2013) to identify key challenges and provide recommendations for improvement in road safety management, and similarly addresses the Safe System pillars for the interventions level. The seven institutional management functions include: results focus, coordination, legislation, finance and resource allocation, promotion and advocacy, monitoring and evaluation, and research and development of knowledge transfer.

The Safe System pillars include road safety management, safe roads and mobility, safe vehicles, safe road users, post-crash care, and safe speeds. The RSMCA’s alignment with both the road safety institutional management functions and the Safe System Approach in turn aims to help the Government of Vanuatu to prioritize targeted next steps to address road crash death and serious injury in the country.

Nearly 30% of all road traffic deaths reported to WHO involve powered two- and three-wheeled vehicles, such as motorcycles, mopeds, scooters and electrical bikes (e-bikes). As these vehicles become increasingly widespread, particularly in low-and middle-income countries, the proportion of deaths involving them is increasing. 

The second edition of the Powered- Two and Three-Wheeler Safety Manual offers guidance to help decision makers and practitioners put in place the comprehensive set of laws, regulations and actions needed to save lives. Rooted in new case studies and evidence, including from low- and middle-income countries, it includes guidelines on developing safer roads, ensuring safer mobility for all road users, vehicle safety standards, and actions to improve emergency responses to crashes.

This report summarizes the findings of a long and meticulous journey of data gathering and analysis to quantify the health losses from road deaths and injuries worldwide, as part of the path-finding Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. It is important, first, to acknowledge the profound contribution made by the lead authors and global team of injury prevention professionals to estimate the disease burden of road trauma, before absorbing their findings and recommendations. Without their dedication and tenacity, the way forward would be less certain.

The first GBD study, published nearly two decades ago, signaled an emerging road safety crisis in developing regions of the world. It triggered a remarkable program of global advocacy that culminated in the United Nations decade of action for road safety and a global plan to bring road safety outcomes under control in these regions by 2020. However, limited investment has been mobilized so far to implement the UN initiative. The second GBD studies, and related analyses presented in this report, confirm the importance of road safety as a global development priority and the urgency with which it must be addressed.

The report's findings highlight the growth in road deaths and injuries globally, and their substantial impacts on maternal and child health, despite sustained reductions over the last three to four decades in high-income countries. Combined with the deaths arising from vehicle pollution, the road transport death toll exceeds that of, for example, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or diabetes. This statistic further reinforces the call for global action. Without these GBD estimates, we would not have a clear picture of the true situation because official country data in the developing world vastly understate the scale of road transport health losses.

What is this toolkit?
This toolkit sets out the key elements of effective post-crash emergency response. The toolkit covers:

• reasons for taking action
• the main elements of post-crash response
• examples of best practice
• helpful resources.

Who is this toolkit for?
The toolkit is for all stakeholders with an interest in post-crash response. This includes:

• government departments and policymakers
• local and regional government
• emergency service managers and professionals
• paramedics and community responders
• laypeople and members of the community
• crash survivors, families, and organizations representing them.

How to use it

The toolkit describes basic good practices for organizing an effective post-crash response. It is a starting point for dialogue and discussion, aimed at identifying goals for improving post-crash services. Every country has different structures and challenges, so the toolkit is not “one-size-fits-all.” However, certain elements of good post-crash response apply everywhere: the need for strategic planning and investment, good coordination, communication, equipment, and training.

To learn more about this project, click here.

Based on 2018 findings of the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of deaths due to road crashes is 1.35 million deaths per year. While this number is quite high and increasing every year, the rate of road crash deaths per 100,000 of population has remained constant, at around 18 deaths, over the years. This rate of deaths is however not distributed proportionately amongst the different regions and countries. The high-income countries have recorded lowest average rate at 8.3 per 100,000. In contrast to this number, low-income countries have the highest annual road traffic fatality rates averaging at 27.5 deaths per 100,000– more than three times the average for high-income countries.

ROAD CRASH AND IMPACT

Most of the deaths and injuries from road crashes are of the working age population, which negatively impacts both the economy and the demography of the region. Road traffic injuries are currently the 8th leading cause for death for all age groups, and further compounding the demographic impact is the fact that road crashes are the leading cause of death for children and young adults, between the ages of 5 and 29 years.

Road traffic crashes have a high economic impact, costing 3 percent of a country’s GDP on average. They also cause a significant impact on the individuals as well as their families. Injuries arising due to road crashes can lead to trauma for the individual and loss in productivity. Along with costs of treatment, economic challenges may further be increased due to temporary or permanent loss of income as well. Along with the victim, road crashes take an emotional toll on the immediate family members and caregivers during the treatment process or any deaths and add to the economic burden as they may need to take time off work or school to care for the injured. 

The distribution of road users varies within different regions and income groups of countries. This impacts the variations in death rates amongst the users. The low- and middle-income countries have a significantly high proportion of pedestrians, cyclists and two- or three-wheeler motorized vehicles. Overall, the global road traffic deaths for pedestrians and cyclists is at 26% and another 28% for two- and three-wheeler motorcyclists, totaling nearly 54% of vulnerable road users. This proportion varies in comparison between the economic group of countries, with a high percentage of road crash victims being car occupants.

Globally, a significant percentage of road crash victims being car occupants is also an indicator of insufficient infrastructure for controlling traffic speeds and volumes. Furthermore, when people use private cars more for their daily activities, it results in a higher level of total vehicle-kilometers traveled (VKT). Choice of using personal vehicle over using non-motorized transport or public mass transport may be attributed to the car-centric planning and design of road infrastructure. Many countries lack adequate protected infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. This discourages users to walk or bicycle to their destinations.

Mode-choice plays a critical role in road safety. Public mass transit systems not only provide faster and safer transportation mode choices, they also help reduce dependency on privately owned vehicles on the road. Public mass transit services typically follow designated routes as well, thereby minimizing interferences between different types of road users. While many countries still have to develop mass transit infrastructure such as metro rails, public bus system is quite prevalent, with bus rapid transit (BRT) and bus only lane infrastructures being developed. Absence of proper first and last mile connectivity to the transit stations poses security threats for road users and discourages them from using public transport.

SAFE SYSTEM APPROACH

The Safe System approach derives from the Swedish Vision Zero and Dutch Sustainable Safety strategies that have a long-term goal for a road traffic system to be eventually free from fatalities and serious injuries. It represents a shift away from traditional approach of preventing collisions to a more forgiving approach of preventing fatalities and mitigating serious injuries in road crashes. The traditional approach emphasizes the responsibility of road users to avoid crashes rather than the responsibility of system designers to provide a safe mobility system.

The Safe System approach takes into account that humans are vulnerable and fallible, and errors are to be expected. It aims at ensuring these mistakes do not lead to a crash, and if a crash does occur, it is sufficiently controlled to not cause a death or a life-changing injury. Thereby with a “zero-harm goal”, it places a strong emphasis on road builder/operator and vehicle manufacturer accountability for road safety performance.

The Safe System approach emphasizes shared responsibility. Government agencies at different levels and a range of multisectoral agencies and stakeholders – including policy makers, road engineers, planners, vehicle manufacturers, enforcement officers, emergency medical agencies, road safety educators etc. – are accountable for the system’s safety and all road users – drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians are responsible for complying with the system rules.

Road safety is a major public health issue in Cambodia. Reducing the number of road crashes is a priority for the government. Accurate data are needed to design the most effective interventions. Improving the current crash data system will furnish a more comprehensive picture of critical road safety issues in Cambodia and provide the basis for developing policies to save more lives.

In the framework of the development of the Asia Pacific Road Safety Observatory (APRSO), the World Bank and the International Transport Forum (ITF), with the support of the Cambodian Government, initiated a project aimed at assessing the crash data system in Cambodia and developing a road map for strengthening this system.

This project follows up on a previous twinning project between Cambodia and the Netherlands, undertaken in the framework of the International Road Traffic and Accident Database (IRTAD) group of ITF in 2010-2014. That project concerned both a review of the Road Crash and Victim Information System (RCVIS), and training and support to develop a national road safety strategy and related indicators.

The current project started in 2019 and was carried out by the World Bank and the ITF, with support from the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) and UK AID. The Dutch Road Safety Research Institute, SWOV, was contracted by the ITF to lead the review.

This report provides conclusions and recommendations on the basis of the data review mission undertaken in December 2019.