IRTE picked up the Premier Award for its road injury prevention programme and for being a key partner in the Safer Cars for India project established by Global NCAP, an independent certification body that evaluates the safety of vehicles.
Part of IRTE’s strategy has been the setting up of what is believed to be Asia’s first Masters of Science in Traffic Management.
For many years IRTE’s College of Traffic Management has been educating and offering courses to police officials and others to help them manage and design traffic and transportation management systems. IRTE president Rohit Baluja, who received the award in London, said the institute has worked with educationalists, doctors, journalists, engineers, ex-servicemen, architects, automobile experts and members of the police to improve road safety in India.
The two-year Masters of Science in Traffic Management, which started last August with 30 students, was given approval by the government of Haryana - a state that surrounds the capital New Delhi - and the Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak, within Haryana.
Baluja said one of the aims of the degree course is to encourage other institutes across South East Asia to sponsor similar masters programmes.
Other winners of Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards came from Kyrgyzstan, Australia, Myanmar and Malaysia. Organisations included the UK’s
In the UK, Scotland TranServ – a
Transerv’s award was for an initiative implemented in conjunction with
Research showed KSI figures – killed or seriously injured - for the A75 were one-and-a-half times higher than the average for trunk roads in south-west Scotland. Despite cars accounting for between eight and nine times more than the volume of HGVs, accidents involving HGVs were six times the national average for this type of road.
A vehicle-activated sign system was introduced to tackle the problem, using Clearview’s vehicle count and classify device. By identifying the speed and class of vehicle, the different national speed limit warnings could be shown to the passing vehicle via VAS (vehicle-activated signs) to drivers travelling above the safe speed for the road.
Since its installation in 2015, accidents involving HGVs have fallen 31% while HGV speed has dropped by 5%. Overall vehicle speed has come down by 12.5%.
Picking up the Safer Road Users accolade for 2018 was Project Edward, an initiative run by the European traffic police network
The judges said TISPOL’s project was recognised for its high-profile, evidence-based work through targeted enforcement, media and public relations for one day each year. In 2018, 31 countries participated. Also, an information road trip covering 3,000km across 10 European countries helped to highlight the campaign. Social media, too, reached in excess of 38 million people.
TISPOL’s next #ProjectEDWARD day is set to take place in September.
Among winners in the Road Safety Projects category was the Public Association Road Safety (PARS) organisation in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic. In a country with over 10,000 non-government organisations, PARS is the first and only one solely for road safety. Set up in 2012 with a grant from the UK charity
Of major significance is PARS’s Pedestrian Safety campaign in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. This has been effective in influencing the development of the government’s Smart City Strategy to include better provision for vulnerable road users in the city.
In the Road Safety Education category, a winner was a project by the Road Safety Department of Malaysia and the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS).
MIROS was established in 2007 as an agency under Malaysia’s transport ministry. It is principally engaged in research but also works closely with local and international government agencies and private bodies to improve road safety. MIROS’s research and evidence-based intervention programmes provide the basis for formulation of government strategies, legislation, policies and enforcement measures at local and national level.
A change in Malaysia’s National School Curriculum enabled road safety education modules to become mandatory for primary schools. Teachers, road safety experts, educational psychologists and traffic enforcement teams contributed to development of the modules with support from MIROS. Modules for older children, in secondary schools, are in development.
In 2014, transport ministers from ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) appointed MIROS as the ASEAN Road Safety Centre. The aims of this centre are to promote and provide knowledge on road safety issues among ASEAN member states which includes road traffic laws and regulations, data management, standards development, and road safety awareness and education.
Recently in Malaysia, a 22-year-old ambulance driver was killed and his passenger injured when he reportedly lost control of the vehicle and it crashed into a guardrail. The accident follows an earlier fatal accident where the vehicle hit a guardrail. MIROS is in the forefront of groups of working with the government to better ambulance driver education and to set higher safety standards for guardrails.
The Awards
Established in the UK by Prince Michael of Kent in 1987, the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards recognise outstanding international road safety initiatives. The awards are presented in five main categories based upon the five pillars of the United Nation’s Global Plan for a Decade of Action. Winners are invited to London for an awards ceremony in December.
In 2017, Bosch Global picked up the Premier Award for its electronic stability control (ESC)technology that was described as the “most significant advance in vehicle safety since the seatbelt”. ESC, which detects and reduces a vehicle’s loss of traction, has been mandatory in all new cars built in the European Union since November 2014.
When ESC detects loss of steering control, it automatically applies the brakes to help steer the vehicle where the driver intends to go. Braking is automatically applied to individually wheels - the outer front wheel to counter oversteer or the inner rear wheel to counter understeer. Some ESC systems also reduce engine power until control is regained.
The first commercial ESC system was introduced by Bosch on the Mercedes-Benz S 600 Coupé in 1995. Global NCAP estimates that since then ESC has helped avoid at least 188,500 crashes which would have resulted in injury and saving more than 6,100 lives.
The UN’s Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 provides a framework for safer road activities focusing on five categories or "pillars" of activities. These are: building road safety management capacity; improving the safety of road infrastructure and broader transport networks; further developing the safety of vehicles; enhancing the behaviour of road users; and improving post-crash response.
CARRS-Q was established in 1996 as a joint venture between the Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC) and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The centre, based within the university’s Faculty of Health, addresses the human, economic and social costs resulting from road crashes. It investigate people’s behaviour with the aim of devising countermeasures.
CARRS-Q has become known for its Advanced Driving Simulator. It uses SCANeR studio software with eight computers, projectors and a six-degree of freedom (6DOF) motion platform that can move and twist in three dimensions. When seated in the simulator vehicle, the driver and passengers are immersed in a virtual environment that includes a 180O front field of view, simulated rear-view mirror images, surround-sound for engine and environment noise as well as real car cabin and simulated vehicle motion.
The judges awarded RoadSafetyUAE for its safety work, in particular its recent campaign to get the United Arab Emirates to enact what is called the Holistic Seatbelt Law. Founded in 2014, RoadSafetyUAE is an non-government organisation that uses sound data and scientific evidence to underpin its activities and campaigns.
On July 1, 2017 it became the law to buckle up, including children. However, RoadSafetyUAE maintained its campaign, noting that many people ignore the law. Every year, Dubai Traffic Police and Abu Dhabi Police fine tens of thousands of drivers who do not buckle up, despite fines of up to US$110 and several demerit points on an offender’s licence. A study of Abu Dhabi Police in October 2017 showed, that 60% of traffic fatalities were due to non-wearing of seat belts.
More recently, RoadSafetyUAE, along with its corporate social responsibility partner, global US-based consumer goods manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, held workshops in the Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh and Jeddah for Saudi Arabian lady drivers.
The workshops contained live video messages from senior Johnson & Johnson executives underlining the importance of safe conduct on Saudi roads. Johnson & Johnson also incorporated much of its Safe Fleet video presentations to highlight the main cause of accidents and developed a child car-seat demonstration and presentation.
