Transport Safety and Security was the theme of the ITF 2018 Summit which gathered in Leipzig, Germany end of May around 1400 decision-makers from more than 80 countries including more than three dozen ministers. IRF (Geneva) was invited to share its work and ideas on an ITF panel session on “Raising awareness” and on an official side event organised by the Union for the Mediterranean. The Summit provided also the opportunity for a meeting of Advisory Board of the FIA High Level Panel on Road Safety – of which IRF is an active member – and a meeting of the Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) Consortium that marked the official appointment of IRF (Geneva) as Steering Committee Member.

This year Summit addressed issues ranging from terrorism and cyber-security to road safety and extreme weather disruption, including the risks and benefits of automated driving. Safety and security are core concerns for transport. A transport system that is safe and secure enables passengers to travel without fear and allows businesses to ship goods reliably and efficiently. Enhancing transport safety and security is also an essential element in the implementation of two major international agreements, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Speaking at an ITF panel session on “Raising Awareness” Ms. Zammataro, IRF Director General, underlined that education and awareness campaigns are not enough: “To break the road safety silo, we need a game changer: strong public engagement and youth engagement in particular” she said. This is facilitated by the emergence of new cooperative transport planning tools. Developing this idea, Mr. Lieshout, Director of Youth for Road Safety called for a paradigm shift to “Stop blaming young people for dying on the roads but fix the system around them. Simply raising their awareness is not enough. They need to be empowered, to become our partners towards a safe system”.

This was also echoed at the side event on “Towards enduring road safety in the euro-Mediterranean region” hosted by the Union for the Mediterranean. The high-level panel convened to this meeting agreed on the necessity to work on data and better collection of data, a point which had been clearly raised by Mrs Zammataro sharing IRF’s experience with the World Road Statistics.

For a summary of the panel on Raising Awareness and image gallery: https://2018.itf-oecd.org/raising-awareness

For a Summary of the side event on Euro-Med region and image gallery: https://2018.itf-oecd.org/towards-ensuring-road-safety-euro-mediterranean-region

For the Summit Highlights and Final Declaration: https://2018.itf-oecd.org/outputs-resources

For more info on SuM4All: http://www.sum4all.org/

For more info on the FIA HLP: http://www.roadsafety2030.com/