New tool to improve road safety

Every year 1.25 million people are killed and around 50 million are injured in road traffic crashes, making it one of the most pressing health emergencies of our time. Additionally, 500 children lose their lives daily because of road crashes, and it is the leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 29.

To combat this global crisis, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), with support from IRU, are developing Safe Future Inland Transport Systems (SafeFITS) – a tool to support knowledge-based transport policy decision making in reducing the number of road casualties.  

SafeFITS’ primary aim will be to help governments and decision makers assess the results of policies and measures designed to improve road safety. Now entering its final phase of development, the SafeFITS model was presented at a round table of road safety experts and decision makers in Geneva today.  

Representatives of the road safety scientific community including international organisations, academia and international financial institutions, provided feedback on SafeFITS and discussed road safety statistics, modelling and measuring the impact of road safety policies. This feedback will help refine SafeFITS and underline ways to improve the availability of robust, high quality road safety data and statistics.