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

  • Americans want more action and enforcement to improve highway safety
    May 16, 2012
    At a time when there is intense debate about the role of government, a majority of Americans support additional laws and want more action by government officials to improve highway safety, a new survey released yesterday by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety claims.
  • Evonik creates global award for public authority safety efforts
    April 6, 2016
    Half of the world’s road traffic deaths occur among vulnerable road users, according to the World Health Organisation.
  • Interactive map reveals the UK’s riskiest roads
    November 20, 2018
    The A254 between the junction with A28 in Margate and the junction with the A255 near Ramsgate is the UK’s riskiest road, according to an interactive Dangerous Road Map. There were 26 fatal and serious crashes per billion vehicle kilometres on this road, say motor insurer Ageas and the Road Safety Foundation (RSF). Both organisations are now calling on an immediate investment from the UK government of £75 million, and the same amount annually for five years thereafter to improve the country’s riskiest
  • User-based insurance joins the battle for big data
    November 10, 2015
    User-based insurance is blazing a trail others would like to follow and is also discovering the challenges. The ITS sector needs to keep a very careful eye on the automotive industry: “There’s a war going on in the connected car space creating richer datasets than we ever imagined possible” says Paul Stacy, research and development director of Wunelli, part of the LexisNexis group. The car makers have gone way beyond infotainment, unlocking huge amounts of data in the process … facts and figures which the i