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

  • CoMotion LA Live 2020: report
    November 30, 2020
    November’s CoMotion LA Live event looked at new technology, emerging partnerships – and how Joe Biden’s ‘super-commuter’ status might just stand future mobility in good stead
  • Four UK cities awarded funding to drive green car revolution across
    January 28, 2016
    Four cities have been awarded significant funds to promote green vehicle technology after successfully bidding for a share of a multi-million pot created to support the take-up of plug-in electric cars across the UK. Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced the winners of the Go Ultra Low City Scheme, after the successful cities proposed a number of initiatives to support greener vehicles as part of a government competition.
  • Video developments in automatic incident detection
    May 22, 2012
    David Crawford reviews technological progress with automatic incident detection Highway safety problems are likely to intensify given recent predictions of future traffic growth across the world. In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that currently over 30,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries occur as the result of accidents on the nation’s roads each year. These figures will increase with the number of kilometres travelled each year in the US expected to gr
  • First pan-London Car Club Action Plan launched
    May 21, 2015
    Around 85 per cent of UK car club members already based in London New plan will help reach new joint target of one million London car club members by 2025 Future growth of car clubs will help improve London’s air quality and reduce congestion in the Capital A new ‘strategy for car clubs’ in London has been launched today (21 May), to encourage residents and businesses across the capital to sign up to car club schemes as an alternative to direct car ownership. The new action plan, jointly developed b