Eliminating high-risk roads is the focus of a new five-year extension to an agreement between Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP).
The agreement was signed by Greg Smith, iRAP’s acting chief executive, and Esteban Diez Roux, operation senior advisor at the IDB.
The five-year deal brings the organisations’ joint partnership for safer roads in Latin America and the Caribbean to 10 years. The agreement was inked during the Ten Steps to 2030 for Safer Road Infrastructure Side Event of the recent 4th Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety underway in Marrakech, Morrocco.
The Inter-American Development Bank, set up in 1959, is a major source of long-term financing for economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. It also conducts research and provides policy advice, technical assistance and training to public and private sector clients throughout the region.
The new five-year extension agreement will facilitate more collaboration between the IDB and iRAP to promote programmes and projects to significantly improve the safety of roads in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a registered charity in London, UK, iRAP works with organisations such as United Nations, World Health Organisation, governments, development banks, mobility clubs, industry and non-government road safety organisations was well as research organisations. It provides evidence-based tools, training and support to help make roads safe.
Experts from both IDB and iRAP will conduct road safety assessments, build local capacity and prioritise investments in safer infrastructure. It will also foster the sharing of information and best practices and promote the use of innovative tools and technologies to improve road safety outcomes.
According to iRAP’s Safety Insights Explorer, it is estimated that nearly 94,000 people were killed and more than five million were injured in road crashes in Latin America in 2021 - at a cost of US$223.4 billion.
The partnership will focus on delivering a measurable reduction in road trauma in the regions and contribute to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and Global Road Safety Performance Targets. This will be particularly effective for Targets 3 and 4. For Target 3, by 2030, “all new roads achieve technical standards for all road users that take into account road safety, or meet a three star rating or better”. For Target 4, by 2030, “more than 75% of travel on existing roads is on roads that meet technical standards for all road users that take into account road safety”.
The agreement will pave the way to implement Road Assessment Programmes following the iRAP methodology in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will help reduce the number of casualties and serious injuries caused by road crashes.
Star rating
The work of iRAP and the IDB will also focus on reviewing the methods used in evaluating previous investments in road safety infrastructure and providing guidance and recommendations for future investments. The emphasis is on methods for measuring programme effectiveness. Both institutions will also develop communications plans to raise public awareness and training to build capacity compliant with the ‘3 star’ or better road safety standard.
The safety star rating methodology from iRAP is free to use and provides an objective measure of the level of “built-in” road safety for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians. A ‘1-star’ road is the least safe and a ‘5-star’ road is the safest.
“Partnerships are at the heart of the global iRAP programme,” said iRAP’s Smith. “This collaboration will bring together the expertise of iRAP and its partners with the IDB’s wide range of public and private sector financing options to help countries across the region transform urban and rural road networks for the safety of everyone.”
“We started working with iRAP in 2010,” said Esteban Diez Roux, operation senior advisor at the Inter-American Development Bank. “We did the Pacific Corridor, which is basically the backbone that connects all of Central America, from Mexico down to Panama. It was about 2,000km. We did that initial assessment in 2010 and redid the assessment in 2018, which resulted in $1.56 billion of investment in that corridor in the past 15 years. We’re going to keep on working on that Corridor and we estimate that in the next 20 years we’re going to save 30,000 lives. Since 2010, we’ve done an additional 43,000km with iRAP.”
Roux noted that the bank has changed the way it works with iRAP. “Initially in 2010, we saw it more of just an assessment tool. Now we’re integrating that in all our transportation projects. It’s been very impactful and the economic benefits are enormous,” he said.
Achieving greater than 75 percent of travel in Latin America and the Caribbean on 3-star or better roads by 2030 stands to save an estimated 31,400 fatalities a year. Its will also save up to 34 million fatalities and injuries over 20 years in the region with a benefit of $7.20 for every $1 spent, according to iRAP’s Safety Insights Explorer.
Milestones
Safer roads’ milestones achieved in the first five years of iRAP and IDB’s partnership agreement include financing network analyses for over 28,000 km of roads through loans and technical cooperation. These efforts span the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, the Pacific Corridor, Colombia, Brazil, Belize and Uruguay, which also include analyses for 55 school areas to support critical infrastructure improvements.
In a major step forward, the IDB has backed the development of ViaSegura, an AI-powered tool optimising road safety analysis across 10,000km in Brazil. Additionally, iRAP safety indicators are now embedded in infrastructure loans for São Paulo, Ceará and Costa Rica, reinforcing a regional shift toward data-driven, safer mobility solutions.
Further strengthening its commitment, the IDB’s public-private partnership unit has integrated iRAP metrics as key performance indicators in highway concessions in Brazil (Minas Gerais and Santa Catarina) and Panama. This is ensuring that road safety remains a top priority in major infrastructure projects.
iRAP works with its partners to inspect high-risk roads and develop Star Ratings, Risk Maps and Safer Roads Investment Plans. It provides training, tools and support to develop and maintain national, regional and local capacity. It also analyses road safety outcomes so that funding agencies can assess the economic and lifesaving benefits of their investment.
iRAP and its partners have so far star-rated 1.9 million kilometres of roads and layouts as well as 1,940 schools. The organisation says that this is influencing the safety of $111 billion of infrastructure investment. Also, 1.9 million kilometres have been risk-mapped and nearly 76,000 people have been trained worldwide.
According to research led by Johns Hopkins University in the US, published in the journal PLOS One, road projects funded by governments, development banks and private sector road operators around the world using iRAP methodology and tools have prevented 860,000 deaths and serious injuries in 74 countries since 2016.
The Safety Insights Explorer from iRAP sheds light on the human and economic impact of road crashes. Its estimates the numbers and types of injuries that occur for every country by age and sex. It gives star ratings and key design attributes for around 600,000km of roads in more than 80 countries. It also sets out the business case for the achievement of UN Target 4 for 75% of travel to be on ‘3-star’ or better roads by 2030 in each country worldwide.
The 4th Global Ministerial Conference of Road Safety held this month was hosted by the Kingdom of Morocco and World Health Organisation (WHO). With the theme #CommitToLife, the conference and side events brought together ministers, heads of national road safety agencies, government representatives from road authorities at all levels, as well as representatives from the United Nations, civil society, industry and academia.
Decade of Action
In September 2020, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/74/299, ‘Improving Global Road Safety’, proclaiming the ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030’. The ambitious target is to prevent at least 50 percent of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030. WHO and the UN regional commissions, in cooperation with other partners in the UN Road Safety Collaboration, have developed a Global Plan for the Decade of Action, which was released in October 2021.
Now, with only five years left in the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, participants at the conference in Marrakech assessed the progress, identified priorities, shared knowledge and strengthened alliances and advanced commitments and actions to accelerate action towards halving global road deaths and injuries by 2030. iRAP, together with the International Road Federation (IRF) and World Road Association (PIARC), hosted the Ten Steps to 2030 for Safer Road Infrastructure Side Event during the conference.
