Safety & Security

Road accidents are a global pandemic. Nearly 0.5 million people die and up to 15 million people are injured in urban road accidents in developing countries each year, at a direct economic cost of between 1 and 2 percent of GDP in many countries and untold grief and suffering. Accidents occur widely on roads between intersections rather than being concentrated at intersections, as is the case in industrialized countries, and the majority of victims are poor pedestrians and bicyclists. In addition, personal security is a growing social problem in many countries.

Both safety and security encompass more than what is commonly included in transport analyses and/or what comes under the purview of transport sector institutions. Measures to increase safety and security devised in the transport context need to be linked to those taken from other points of view, for example that of the health and education authorities or land developers.

Traffic safety is a mature field with a long-established consensus of what to do, expressed in the well-known triple-E slogan: education, engineering and enforcement. To this, P should be added for public participation, an essential element of safety and security programs. Problems arise when it comes to allocation of powers and responsibilities among different institutions. The most common friction-causing case is deciding the relative functions of municipal engineering departments and traffic police. Also, in countries with high political tensions and low tolerance of dissent, there may be problems when there are weak boundaries within the police force between traffic police and other police functions. This has sometimes led to the formation of special traffic and/or parking warden corps outside the regular police organization.

Traffic safety components have been included in the Bank’s urban transport projects from the beginning of urban lending. Most often, these have been traffic engineering and management improvements at “black spot” and other sensitive locations (including insecure areas) and programs to introduce accident data collection and analysis in the local institutions. Working with traffic police has also been included, though less often. The research program of the Bank has been very much oriented to supporting safety-oriented lending. In the 1980s it focused on the development of economic evaluation techniques for safety investments. More recently, the Bank has joined forces with other international agencies active in the safety field to study accident patterns and impacts, and to codify activities of institutions involved with safety.

• Urban Transport Safety and Security. Chapter 5 from "Cities on the Move"
  (PDF, 74KB)
• Implementing the Recommendations of The World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention: A Guidance Note
  (PDF, 211KB)
  Tony Bliss, The World Bank, April 2004.
  This World Bank Guidance Note summarizes the findings of the "World Report" and provides guidelines to assist with the implementation of its recommendations. These will require both countries and donor agencies to substantially scale-up and refocus their activities, with a strong emphasis on managing for results. The Note also stresses different operational responses for urban and rural road types and highlights the contribution that can be made by urban safety operations to the achievement of urban development strategies seeking better integration of traffic and land use functions, to improve overall urban amenity.
  The Note is also available in:
  French (PDF, 231KB)
  Russian (PDF, 391KB)
  Spanish (PDF, 229KB)
  Chinese (PDF, 233KB)
• The World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention
  (PDF, 5.53MB)
  World Health Organisation and The World Bank, April 2004.
  This Report highlights the growing public health burden of road deaths and injuries in low and middle-income countries. It also makes a powerful case for concerted and urgent action to address the problem, as a global development priority. The Report addresses key safety issues relevant to urban areas and in particular places special emphasis on the management of exposure to risk through improved transport and land use policies.
  The report is also available in
  Arabic (PDF, 11.7MB)
  Chinese (PDF, 16.4MB)
  French
  Russian (PDF, 3.9MB)
  Spanish

• Road Safety World Bank Web Site

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