6. Road Safety Targets, Investment Strategies, Plans and Projects

Key messages

• Adoption of a Safe System goal for the long-term supported by short and medium-term quantitative targets provides the focus for achieving better performance.
• To achieve good performance a strong linkage between road safety agencies and elected members and Ministers in a country is essential.
• Competent data collection and analysis of risk using the collected data is a precondition for target-setting.
• An assessment of a country’s road safety management system is appropriate to consider the achieved results, the scope and quality of applied interventions, and the efficiency of institutional management capacity
• Intervention selection should be guided by evidence of its likely effectiveness, assessment of likely community and government support, and whether the country has capacity to implement it.
• Implementation also requires identifying what changes to current operating practices within agencies will be required, what impacts of actions on other policy areas will need to be addressed, and the level of capacity needed to achieve successful implementation progress.
• Funding and implementation of a demonstration project to build capacity in LMICs is strongly recommended as a first step. This will enable later-stage target setting, strategy/action plan assembly and targeted outcome delivery to be achieved as successful demonstration project approaches are then rolled out across the country.
• The demonstration project should treat a high-risk corridor with a complete range of interventions across the road safety agencies, review selected policies, establish project management arrangements and monitor outcomes to establish progress.
• The demonstration project will develop capacities within agencies in LMICs (i.e. strong bureaucratic and political linkages; improved advocacy; strengthened road safety management, leadership and coordination; and extended technical knowledge).
• Strategies for the later growth and consolidation investment phases should be evidence-based and actions should be data-driven.
• It is recommended that time-limited targets for these investment phases be ambitious, but realistic. Substantial legislative actions will be an important vehicle to support policy change as part of medium-term strategy.