EuroRAP

Aims & Philosophy

EuroRAP aims to reduce the likelihood of traffic collisions and make those that do occur survivable. Its formal objectives are to:

EuroRAP supports the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2012-2020.

Membership

EuroRAP is a membership-based organisation, with members in high- and low-income countries. There are three categories of membership:

Road safety schemes

EuroRAP has developed standardised protocols for showing the safety level of a road providing a common language that everyone can speak. In low and middle income countries, the EuroRAP methodology provides a structure to measure and manage road safety risk, the basic building blocks of which are often lacking. As a result, these nations can often be faster and more innovative in applying new solutions. EuroRAP encourages countries to focus on their busiest roads where the largest crash savings can be made and therefore countries do not need to include their entire road network in RAP analysis to make a large difference.

Risk mapping

Based on real crash and traffic flow data, colour-coded maps show a road's safety performance by measuring and mapping the rate at which road users are being killed or seriously injured. Different maps can be produced depending on the target audience. These include:

Risk is shown in colour-coded bandings from high (black), to low risk (green).

Performance tracking

The establishment of road safety targets requires that safety performance can be monitored over time. Governments and funding agencies can also benefit from evaluating the road safety impacts of their investments. Performance tracking identifies whether fewer people are being killed or seriously injured on a road section over time and the countermeasures that have been most effective, including cost, in reducing crashes and injury severity.

Safety performance indicators also provide an effective means of monitoring performance. Measures such as helmet and seat belt wearing rates have been used effectively in assessing road safety behaviour, as have speed measurements and conflict studies, and RAP star ratings provide a set of safety performance indicators for road infrastructure.

Star rating

Star ratings are used to show the likelihood of a fatal or serious crash and how well the road infrastructure would protect from death or serious injury when a crash occurs. By systematically inspecting roads, countries can develop an understanding of the level of risk built into their road networks. This provides the basis for targeting high risk sections for improvement before people are killed or seriously injured. Inspections are especially useful when crash data is unavailable or unreliable.

Inspections are undertaken using specially equipped vehicles to collect digital, panoramic images or videos of roads as they are driven. These images are then used to record (or 'code') road design attributes known to influence the likelihood of a crash and its severity. The inspections create a permanent video and database record that can be reviewed easily by local engineers and planners. The attributes recorded at 100 metre intervals include:

Roads are awarded stars for the level of safety they offer. These range from 1 (high risk) to 5 (low risk).

To enable cost-effective assessment of roads, there is a global network of RAP-accredited suppliers who are capable of competitively bidding to undertake high quality inspections and coding.

Safer Roads Investment Plans

Where star ratings provide a measure of risk on a road, Safer Roads Investment Plans identify ways in which the star ratings can be improved in a cost-effective way. There is evidence that well-targeted road safety improvements save lives, at both individual locations and across networks. For example, on a section of the A4128 in the UK, speed reductions, improved signs and markings, intelligent road studs, traffic calming and upgraded pedestrian crossings helped cut the number of fatal and serious crashes from 19 in 2004-06 to two in 2007-09 - an 89% reduction.

The Safer Roads Investment Plans include extensive planning and engineering information such as road attribute records, countermeasure proposals and economic assessments for 100 metre sections of road. They are supported by online software.

To date, Safer Roads Investment Plans have been used to identify improvements in low- and middle-income countries that could prevent more than 50,000 deaths and serious injuries per year, saving around $1.2 billion per year in crash costs avoided.

Countries and organisations involved

29 countries are currently involved in EuroRAP. Countries themselves are not members, but organisations based in those countries can be.

In this list, countries are given with the year they first became involved and the organisation that made them involved.