The SafeFITS model – a new tool to improve road safety

The development of the SafeFITS Model is part of IRU and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) mission to work in partnership to improve road safety, with a new tool to help governments design effective road safety action plans that will save lives.

To combat the global road safety crisis, the UNECE, with support from IRU, is developing the SafeFITS model to support knowledge based transport policy decision making related to reducing the number of road casualties. SafeFITS will assist governments and decision makers to develop the most appropriate road safety policies.

It is a statistical model based on the historical road safety data and the relations between road safety indicators. Now entering its final phase of development, SafeFITS was presented to the Global Forum for Road Traffic Safety (WP.1) as part of its 75th session this week. The aim of the presentation was to get feedback from the national representatives in order to improve the quality of the web based application.

It was emphasised that, in years to come, the Model will be further developed following better availability of robust and high quality global road safety data and statistics.

Apart from web application finalisation, the project’s final phase includes pilot tests in Albania and Georgia, as part of the United Nations Development Account funded project “Strengthening the national road safety management capacities of selected developing countries and countries with economies in transition”.