Make Reducing Road Casualties a Priority

In welcoming the UN’s decade of action on Road Safety the ITF called on countries to dramatically improve road safety by applying a more comprehensive approach. “Road-related deaths are one of global transport’s most pressing problems” Jack Short the ITF Secretary General said. “National policies need to make reducing road casualties a priority.”

The First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety requested by the UN General Assembly and hosted by the Russia represents a historic opportunity to make progress on tackling a leading cause of death and disability. As many as 1000 government ministers representatives of UN agencies officials from civil society organisations leaders of private companies and many other road safety experts took part in the event.

The solution to dramatically reducing the number of road-related fatalities which now stands at about 1300000 deaths a year world-wide is to learn from best-performing countries whose fatality rates are five or more times better than those poorly performing countries. “Our goal must be clear: to make road travel as safe for all passengers as rail and air transport” Mr. Short said.

For the full ITF article please click here

ITF on Russia: “Russian Road Safety has improved Significantly”

The ITF also took the opportunity to praise the host of the conference’s progress on improving road safety.

“Russia has made considerable progress in reducing road deaths in recent years” said Jack Short praising the country’s efforts to significantly improve its road safety performance. Since the ITF’s 2006 review of road safety in Russia and the introduction of a new road safety policy fatalities have decreased by 17% despite a 24% increase in traffic. This represents 6000 lives saved an important achievement with major societal and economic benefits for the country. New inter-governmental structures are resulting in better coordination and enforcement has improved noticeably.

For the full ITF article please click here

Report: 18th International Symposium on Transport Economics and Policy: The future for interurban passenger transport – bringing citizens closer together

The Symposium addressed fundamental questions concerning the shape of future passenger transport and whether current infrastructure and governance policies are appropriate.

 

Highlights included:

  • Big cities as motors for economic development
  • Deregulation bringing economic benefits
  • Transport investment for driving growth
  • High speed inter-city rail connections
  • Efficient city transportation

For the full ITF article please click here

 

 

Link to original Article

http://www.ertico.com/the-latest-from-the-international-transport-forum/

Original Publication Date: Tue 27 Jul 2010