IRTAD Conference: Road safety needs better data

With the United Nations aiming to halve the 1.3 million yearly deaths around the world caused by road crashes, international road safety experts met at the IRTAD conference, Morocco, and have adopted Marrakech Declaration: better safety data for better outcomes. The experts from more than 40 countries concluded from the declaration that improving road safety data is essential to reducing road deaths and injuries.
October 18, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

With the United Nations aiming to halve the 1.3 million yearly deaths around the world caused by road crashes, international road safety experts met at the IRTAD conference, Morocco, and have adopted Marrakech Declaration: better safety data for better outcomes. 

The experts from more than 40 countries concluded from the declaration that improving road safety data is essential to reducing road deaths and injuries. They have made a series of recommendations aimed at policymakers and other leaders who are responsible for road safety.

These include identifying which data is needed for making decisions in road safety; addressing underreporting of road crashes and casualties; using more data on injury crashes (fatality data are insufficient to understand road safety problems fully). Furthermore, better knowledge of road safety also relies on better safety performance indicators, exposure data and context information; allowing a national agency analyse and publish road safety data collected at state and national levels. In addition, the recommendations also put forward monitoring risk factors and making results publicly available; harmonising road safety data based on common definitions, and finally, sharing road safety data among countries and co-operating within international initiates.

Fred Wegman, chair or the IRTAD Group, said Reliable data are essential to understand, assess and monitor the nature and magnitude of the road safety problem and the related solutions”.

He added, “Improvements made to the quality of road safety data will also improve the quality of data driven policy decisions.”

Classification & Data Collection Urban Traffic Control

Related Content

  • Road safety systems implementation needs legislation
    February 27, 2012
    A few years back, as part of ongoing efforts to better myself, I took to reading the literary classics. I
    Read More
  • National Safety Council estimates traffic deaths down three percent in 2013
    February 13, 2014
    The US National Safety Council announced today its preliminary estimate that approximately 35,200 motor vehicle fatalities occurred in the US in 2013, a three percent decrease from 2012. Crash injuries requiring medical attention also are estimated to have fallen by two percent since 2012 to a total of 3.8 million. Although 2013 traffic fatalities are three percent lower than 2012, they are one percent higher than 2011. The relatively high number of fatalities in 2012 appears to have been a one year bum
    Read More
  • New research says UK councils not on track for smart city delivery
    July 6, 2016
    New research, commissioned by street lighting experts Lucy Zodion and conducted by independent research agency DJS Research, has highlighted the risk that many local governments are lacking the budget, leadership and capability to progress smart initiatives and connected technology in cities across the UK. The research, involving 187 councils from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, reveals that smart cities are not deemed a strategic priority for the majority of councils in the UK and
    Read More
  • UN vehicle regulations ‘could prevent deaths and injuries in Brazil’
    November 17, 2015
    A new research report from the UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) has revealed that 34,000 Brazilian lives could be saved and 350,000 serious injuries prevented by 2030, if UN vehicle safety regulations were adopted and car manufacturers sought to achieve higher ratings in the Latin NCAP crash test programme. Published on the eve of the second High Level Conference on Road Safety in Brazil, the independent study, which was commissioned by Global NCAP, highlights the gap between the regulated vehicl
    Read More

Highlighted Content