Transport and Covid-19: responses and resources

Implementing the Safe System: An ITF Working Group

The Working Group seeks to develop an operational framework for the implementation of a safe system approach to road safety policy making, regardless of the level of development of the country or city concerned. The Group reviews examples of successful implementation of the approach to develop indicators for monitoring progress.

Approximately 1.35 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes, about 90% of them in low- and middle-income countries. Between 20 and 50 million people are seriously injured. This entails huge consequences in terms of human pain and economic losses. Road safety is now recognised internationally as a major societal issue and is explicitly included in the UN Sustainable Development Goals 3.6 and 11.2.

Crashes can be prevented and their severity reduced. A range of countries and cities have been relatively successful in the past two decades in significantly reducing the number of road casualties. Many of them have adopted a safe system approach which is increasingly recognised as the most effective approach to guide and shape road safety policies.

The Working Group report will be launched at the ITF Annual Summit on 18 May 2022. It will review evidence for the impact of the ongoing shift to safe system approaches in road safety and provide indicators to measure progress in moving to a safe system. Case studies on the effective implementation of a safe system in on country- and city-level complement the analysis. 

Two ITF reports provide background: Towards Zero: Ambitious Road Safety Targets and the Safe System Approach (2008) was the first international effort to define and promote the adoption of a safe system approach as the main framework for road safety policies. The ITF report Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift to a Safe System (2016) examined the core components of a safe system approach in road safety and provided practical guidelines for its implementation.

Contact: Véronique Feypell