Skip to main content

Quality public transport systems key to safety, says report

A new report, Traffic Safety on Bus Priority Systems, produced by Embarq with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, argues the case that investment in high quality public transport systems in developing world cities can help achieve significant traffic safety benefits, while meeting the growing mobility needs of city residents. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 1.2 million people die on the world’s roads each year, and traffic crashes could become the fifth leading cause of death by
February 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
A new report, Traffic Safety on Bus Priority Systems, produced by 2091 Embarq with funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, argues the case that investment in high quality public transport systems in developing world cities can help achieve significant traffic safety benefits, while meeting the growing mobility needs of city residents.

According to the 1819 World Health Organisation (WHO), over 1.2 million people die on the world’s roads each year, and traffic crashes could become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030 without intervention. The growth in bus rapid transit (BRT) and bus priority systems worldwide, which serve more than 31 million people each day in 189 cities, is, says the report, an opportunity to reverse that trend.

This report highlights a unique opportunity to leverage the growing investment in BRT and other bus priority systems in cities around the world to improve safety while meeting the growing mobility needs. Indeed, the number of new 6865 BRT systems has increased in recent years, as the early experiences in Latin America have inspired cities in other regions of the world to improve their public transport systems. The recent commitment by eight multilateral development banks to direct US$175 billion over ten years to sustainable transport will further contribute to this growth.

The report says that evidence in the report clearly shows that high quality public transport systems can result in significant safety benefits on the streets where they are implemented, reducing injuries and fatalities by as much as 50 per cent. But in order to achieve these benefits, it is important to ensure that the new systems being built incorporate high quality infrastructure and safety features.

The report provides detailed, data driven recommendations for incorporating safety into the design, planning, and operation of different types of bus systems, drawing from data analysis and road safety audits and inspections of existing bus systems around the world.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Building the case for photo enforcement
    October 26, 2016
    As red light enforcement is returning to some intersections and being shut down at others, new evidence has been released backing the safety campaigners, reports Jon Masters. In 2014, 709 Americans were killed in red-light-running crashes and an estimated 126,000 were injured according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).
  • Scaling up road safety analysis with Aimsun cloud simulation
    May 10, 2023
    Synthetic generation, execution, and analysis of thousands of road safety scenarios is exponentially more efficient and wider ranging than any methodology based on field data. Marcel Sala & Jordi Casas of Aimsun examine the benefits of cloud simulation for safety testing
  • Insight into China's smart cities initiatives
    April 25, 2013
    Schneider Electric, which has been playing an active role in smart transportation systems in China since 1990, provides an insight into smart city initiatives in the country. Today, most cities across the world are facing unprecedented growth, which questions the viability of the current development model. They are immersed in a competition with each other, both domestically and internationally, in terms of investments, jobs and talents. Cities need to become more attractive and intelligent by becoming more
  • How on-board video systems can increase vehicle & road safety
    January 7, 2022
    Hikvision examines technology which can avert danger in cars, school buses, taxis and trucks