Performance Tracking

The establishment of road safety targets requires that safety performance be monitored over time. Governments and funding agencies can also benefit from evaluating the road safety impacts of their investments.

In countries where reliable crash data is available, Risk Mapping has been used to compare crash rates over time. These countries include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

For example:

• The Spanish automobile association (RACC) found that the number of high crash risk stretches or very high crash risk stretches has decreased from 36% to 7.3% over 10 years (from 1999-2001 to 2008-2010).
• In Poland, researchers at the Technical Institute of Gdansk, together with experts from the motoring club PZM and the Foundation for Civil Engineering found that although 42% of total national roads were rated as high risk for the period 2008-2010, this was 19% (3,000km) less than in 2005-2007.
• In the Czech Republic, UAMK and CityPlan published risk rates on national roads from 2003 to 2010. They found that the number of lower-risk sections was increasing and the number of highest risk ones was decreasing.

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 iRAP Star Ratings provide a set of safety performance indicators for road infrastructure. 

In New Zealand, KiwiRAP Star Ratings are included in weekly road death reports to the Minister for Transport. By combining this with information about behaviour-related issues such as seat belt wearing and speeding and Australasian NCAP Star Ratings for cars, the Minister is able to gain a balanced view of the factors that influenced each death.

In Malaysia, the road authority (JKR) used Star Ratings to rapidly estimate the change in infrastructure-related risk as a result of improvements at several high-risk sites under the black spot program (see below).