ADB bats for road star rating system in Asia Pacific
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is backing the use of road star ratings – an international road safety standard – to guide the design of road infrastructure projects in the Asia Pacific region.
In an entry on the Asian Development blog, International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) strategic projects division head Greg Smith said the multilateral development bank favors the use of road star ratings, an international benchmark used to estimate the risk of accidents on a given road project. The ratings are based on a road’s design and speed limits, with the lowest-risk roads rating five stars and the highest-risk roads rating one-star.
“ADB prefers that designs for new roads or to upgrade existing ones have at least a three-star rating standard and encourages all its developing member countries to rate their roads for safety,” said Smith.
ADB identifies iRAP as an independent organization on road safety working closely with multilateral banks, governments, and industries worldwide. The organization maintains an online software called ViDA that allows anyone with internet access to calculate star ratings for a single road section before committing to installing safety measures in designs.
Smith said China, Malaysia, Australia and Fiji are now making strides in ensuring that most of their road networks have three-star ratings.
“This year, Malaysia set a goal of ensuring that 75 percent of travel is on roads with threestar ratings and above by 2020. In Australia, efforts are underway to make 90 percent of travel on the national network at three stars or better. Fiji is also working to lift the percentage of key transport infrastructure rated at three stars or better,” he said.
More governments, he said, are using star ratings as an internationally accepted evidence-based approach to road safety to improve productivity in communities.
“The OECD’s most recent international report raises the alarming prospect that, after a period of stabilization, road deaths may now be increasing,” said Smith.
Citing data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Smith said among 31 countries for which data are consistently available, there was a 3.3 percent increase in road fatalities in 2015 compared to the year before.
ADB, he said, is expected to release soon a Star Ratings for Schools tool to help communities do their part in promoting road safety design.
“This is part of an effort to make these risk assessment tools more accessible to more people around the world, and help save lives on our roads,” he said.