Six Recommendations for Improvement of Urban Road Safety

With over 1.24 million deaths and up to 50 million injuries every year on roads – over 90% of which happen in low and middle income countries (LMICs), road safety is now recognized as an urgent global problem often costing such countries between 3-5 % of their annual GDP and impeding their economic and social development.
With over 1.24 million deaths and up to 50 million injuries every year on roads – over 90% of which happen in low and middle income countries (LMICs), road safety is now recognized as an urgent global problem often costing such countries between 3-5 % of their annual GDP and impeding their economic and social development. It’s growing importance and the need for LMICSs to take urgent action is emphasized by the United Nations declaring a Decade of Action on road safety and the inclusion of road safety targets within 2 of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Increasing urbanisation around the world is concentrating people and vehicles into the cities and towns exposing even more vulnerable road users (VRUs) such as pedestrians and cyclists to risk of death or injury. Vulnerable road users already contribute by far the biggest numbers of those killed and the majority of these victims die or are severely injured in the cities and towns of LMICs. Preventive action can and should be taken by the Municipal leaders and communities to protect their citizens and to reduce such unnecessary deaths and injuries and the terrible financial and social impacts that can occur to the families of those killed or disabled – especially if they were the main bread winners of the family.

The updated  document on  Urban Road Safety:  Module 5b- Sustainable Transport: A Sourcebook for Policy-makers in Developing Cities provides a comprehensive overview of the kinds of actions that can be taken by policy makers. They can be seen as general guidelines for Mayors and community leaders to help identify possible priority actions but such guidance will need to be adapted to local circumstances and the needs of the particular cities where applied. The six key recommendations for city administrations are:

  • 1) Establish effective management and coordination of road safety activity
  • 2) Establish sustainable funding to enable implementation of a safety programme
  • 3) Develop an urban database to analyse and understand the problem
  • 4) Develop an integrated city wide multi sector road safety programme
  • 5) Develop and implement a programme for infrastructure improvement (Road safety inspection and hazardous locations management)
  • 6) Implement speed management and other measures to reduce risk to VRUs

Please download the english version of the report from here

Other resources: “Infographic – A comprehensive approach for road safety: The example of Germany