Statistical estimation of fatal and serious injuries saved by iRAP protocols in 74 countries

Objective Road traffic crashes cause 1.19 million deaths and millions more injuries annually. The persistently high burden has drawn attention from national and international stakeholders worldwide. Unsafe road infrastructure is one of the major risk factors for traffic safety, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Methods Aiming to eliminate high-risk roads in all countries, the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) developed a robust and evidence-based approach to support country transportation agencies. Results Thus far, the iRAP protocols have been used to collect 1.8 million kilometers of Crash Risk Mapping and 1.5 million kilometers of Star Rating and FSI estimations in 128 countries. Deploying an observational before-and-after (or pre-post) study design, this report estimated the fatal and series injuries (FSI) saved through use of the iRAP protocols. The study is based on 441,753 kilometers of assessed roads from 1,039 projects in 74 countries. Our results show that the implementation of iRAP’s proposed countermeasures saves about 159,936 FSI annually. Throughout the lifetime of the implemented countermeasures, a total of 3.2 million FSI could be saved. Conclusion While quantifying the success of the iRAP protocols, our results suggest an opportunity to save many millions more lives on the roads through expanding iRAP implementation to more regions and countries.