Two Pollutions, One Solution: How Hatko Turns Waste Tyres into Quieter Roads
A conversation with Nejan Hatko, CEO of Hatko Sound Barriers
Founder of Hatko Sound Barriers, Nejan Hatko leads the company’s vision of transforming end-of-life tires into high-performance, low-carbon noise barriers. He is driving the international expansion of the company through a local production model.
Traffic noise is one of Europe’s largest environmental pollutants, linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths every year. End-of-life tyres, meanwhile, pile up as one of the road sector’s most stubborn waste streams. For Nejan Hatko, CEO of Hatko Sound Barriers, these are not two problems but one opportunity: a used tyre that would otherwise pollute becomes a high-performance barrier that shields communities from traffic noise. The company calls it “Two Pollutions, One Solution”.
The idea grew out of the Hatko Group’s own evolution. Founded in 1985 as a construction firm, the group moved into rubber and end-of-life tyre recycling in 2014, becoming one of the largest recyclers in its region. By 2019 it recognised that the waste stream it was already handling could address a second problem: the traffic noise created by the very roads that wear tyres out. Hatko Sound Barriers was born, and the group now reaches around 110 countries.
What sets the model apart is that it is deliberately local. “Rather than shipping product across the world, we aim to establish production in each market using that country’s own waste tyres,” Hatko explains.
Turkish waste tyres become barriers in Türkiye; Portuguese waste tyres become barriers in Portugal. Every project supports local recycling, local jobs and the local environment at the same time. Ask him about the biggest challenge facing noise mitigation, and his answer is procurement. Barriers are still chosen on acoustics and price alone, while embodied carbon and end-of-life are largely ignored.
Conventional concrete, steel and acrylic carry a heavy carbon cost: an independent life-cycle assessment of Hatko’s system found embodied-carbon reductions of over 95% versus stainless steel and around 97% versus transparent acrylic, with substantial savings against concrete, aluminium and PVC as well. “If sustainability is not written into procurement, we quietly solve one pollution problem while worsening another,” he warns.
The difference starts with the raw material. Conventional barriers begin with a virgin one: pour concrete, extrude aluminium, cast acrylic, and most of the carbon is spent before the wall even ships. Hatko starts with a problem material. Every square metre of its barrier uses around 50 kilograms of recycled rubber, roughly one truck tyre, reinforced with carbon fibre, with over 90% recycled content and full recyclability back into new barriers at end of life.
The company works end-to-end, from acoustic design and structural engineering through installation and supervision. The approach is proving itself on the ground. In 2024, working with its UK partner, Hatko completed what was recognised as the world’s first carbon-neutral rubber noise barrier installation, at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence in Wales, proof that a barrier made from waste tyres could meet demanding rail standards while setting a new environmental benchmark.
At home, the company is delivering barriers for the İzmir Ring Road Çiğli Interchange with Türkiye’s General Directorate of Highways, and in Portugal, including on Ascendi’s Norte A11 motorway near Porto, it now supplies projects from local production using Portuguese end-of-life tyres.
Looking ahead, Hatko sees procurement finally aligning with climate goals. In the UK, PAS 2080, the BSI standard for carbon management in infrastructure, is pushing the industry to measure whole-life carbon and cut emissions at the earliest stages, where most of a product’s footprint is locked in.
That plays directly to recycled, locally produced materials, and gives road authorities hard numbers for their own ESG reporting. The company is also making barriers multifunctional: its hybrid systems integrate solar panels, so a wall built to block noise can also generate clean energy.
Guided by net-zero and nature-positive targets for 2030 and 2050, he expects noise barriers to be recognised over the next five years as “active environmental infrastructure, not a grey civil-engineering cost”
It is a conversation he intends to continue in Geneva. Having built a partner network across the UK, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Slovakia, the Western Balkans and Australia, he is looking forward to “the conversations that only happen when policymakers, road authorities and manufacturers are in the same room”, because the decisions that matter, how barriers are specified and whether embodied carbon is scored at all, are made by exactly the people IRF convenes.
His message to delegates is simple: waste and noise do not have to be two separate problems with two separate costs. They can be solved together, and solved locally. “When you specify infrastructure, ask what it is made of and where it goes at the end of its life,” he says.
“If our industry treats embodied carbon as seriously as it treats acoustic performance, the sustainable choice stops being a compromise and becomes the obvious one.”
Hatko Sound Barriers is generously supporting the IRF 2026 Annual Conference, taking place in Geneva from 16 to 18 November 2026. Learn more the conference at https://irfofficial.org/irf-2026-annual-conference.
The Full Interview
Tell us about your organisation — what you do, where you operate and what sets you apart?
Hatko Sound Barriers designs and manufactures acoustic noise barriers for highways and railways, made primarily from recycled end-of-life tyre rubber. We are part of the Hatko Group of Companies, founded in 1985, which moved into rubber and end-of-life tyre recycling in 2014; we launched the noise barrier business in 2019 to turn that expertise into infrastructure. What defines us is our approach, “Two Pollutions, One Solution”: a used tyre that would otherwise pollute becomes a high-performance barrier that shields communities from traffic noise. Crucially, we produce locally — Turkish waste tyres in Türkiye, Portuguese waste tyres in Portugal — and as a group we now reach around 110 countries.
How has your organisation’s mission evolved over the years, and what does it look like today?
The Hatko Group of Companies began in 1985 as a construction firm. In 2014 we moved into rubber and end-of-life tyre recycling, becoming one of the largest recyclers in our region. By 2019 we recognised that the waste stream we were already handling could solve a second problem — the traffic noise created by the very roads that wear tyres out — and Hatko Sound Barriers was born. Our mission today is circular and deliberately local: rather than shipping product across the world, we aim to establish production in each market using that country’s own waste tyres. That way, every project supports local recycling, local jobs and the local environment at the same time.
What is the single biggest challenge facing noise mitigation today, and why does it matter?
The biggest challenge is that noise barriers are still chosen on acoustics and price alone, while their embodied carbon and their end-of-life are largely ignored. Traffic noise is one of Europe’s largest environmental pollutants and is linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths a year, so barriers must be built — but conventional concrete, steel and acrylic carry a heavy carbon cost. An independent life-cycle assessment of our system found embodied-carbon reductions of over 95% versus stainless steel and around 97% versus transparent acrylic, with substantial savings against concrete, aluminium and PVC as well. If sustainability is not written into procurement, we quietly solve one pollution problem while worsening another.
Where do you see the greatest opportunity for progress in the next five years?
The greatest opportunity is procurement finally aligning with climate goals. In the UK, PAS 2080 — the BSI standard for carbon management in infrastructure — is pushing the industry to measure whole-life carbon and to cut emissions at the earliest stages, where most of a product’s footprint is locked in. That plays directly to recycled, locally produced materials like ours, and it gives road authorities hard numbers to strengthen their own ESG reporting. We are also making barriers multifunctional — our hybrid systems integrate solar panels, so a wall built to block noise can also generate clean energy. Guided by our own net-zero and nature-positive targets for 2030 and 2050, I expect noise barriers to be recognised over the next five years as active environmental infrastructure, not a grey civil-engineering cost.
Can you point to a project or deployment that you’re particularly proud of, and why?
In 2024, working with our UK partner, we completed what was recognised as the world’s first carbon-neutral rubber noise barrier installation, at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence in Wales — proof that a barrier made from waste tyres could meet demanding rail standards while setting a new environmental benchmark. At home, we are delivering barriers for the İzmir Ring Road Çiğli Interchange with Türkiye’s General Directorate of Highways, and in Portugal — including on Ascendi’s Norte A11 motorway near Porto — we now supply projects from local production using Portuguese end-of-life tyres. Together they show the local-production model working in practice, keeping tyres out of landfill and noise away from communities.
How does your approach differ from conventional solutions in the market?
Conventional barriers start with a virgin material — pour concrete, extrude aluminium, cast acrylic — and most of the carbon is spent before the wall even ships. We start with a problem material. Every square metre of our barrier uses around 50 kilograms of recycled rubber — roughly one truck tyre — reinforced with carbon fibre, with over 90% recycled content and full recyclability back into new barriers at end of life. And we do not just ship a panel: we produce locally from local waste, and we work end-to-end on acoustic design, structural engineering, installation and supervision. For a road authority, that means noise mitigation that also strengthens its circular-economy and ESG position.
What are you most looking forward to at the IRF 2026 Annual Conference?
I am looking forward to the conversations that only happen when policymakers, road authorities and manufacturers are in the same room in Geneva. Noise and carbon are cross-border issues, and the decisions that matter — how barriers are specified, and whether embodied carbon is scored at all — are made by exactly the people IRF convenes. Having built a partner network across the UK, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Slovakia, the Western Balkans and Australia over the past few years, I am keen to compare notes with other sponsors on sustainable mobility, and to show that a barrier made from local waste can be a serious, standards-compliant infrastructure choice.
What message do you most want delegates to take away from your participation?
That waste and noise do not have to be two separate problems with two separate costs — they can be solved together, and solved locally. Every barrier we install is a landfill’s worth of tyres kept out of the environment and a community given quieter, healthier surroundings, produced from that country’s own waste. My message to delegates is simple: when you specify infrastructure, ask what it is made of and where it goes at the end of its life. If our industry treats embodied carbon as seriously as it treats acoustic performance, the sustainable choice stops being a compromise and becomes the obvious one.
References and Credits
1. Northern Marmara Motorway (KMO), Türkiye — https://www.hatkosoundbarrier.com/northern-marmara-motorway-sound-barriers/
2. Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE), UK — https://www.hatkosoundbarrier.com/global-centre-of-rail-excellence-gcre/
3. Ascendi Norte A11, Porto, Portugal — https://www.hatkosoundbarrier.com/a11-pk027-730/ or https://www.hatkosoundbarrier.com/a11-pk044-125-guimaraes/
4. Arnavutkoy Municipality, Istanbul, Türkiye - https://www.hatkosoundbarrier.com/arnavutkoy-belediyesi/
Higher-resolution files or additional images and video are available on request.For further reference, you are welcome to draw on our website (www.hatkosoundbarrier.com ) and our LinkedIn page ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/hatkosoundbarrier/ )
For more details about Hatko Sound Barriers
Website: www.hatkosoundbarrier.com
Two Pollutions, One Solution: hatkosoundbarrier.com/2-pollutions-1-solution
Projects: hatkosoundbarrier.com/projects
Products: hatkosoundbarrier.com/products
Services: hatkosoundbarrier.com/services
IRF feature — world’s first carbon-neutral rubber noise barrier: irfofficial.org
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/hatkosoundbarrier
Photo credits: all project photographs © Hatko Sound Barriers.
Everyone Deserves a Second Chance: How PASS+CO Has Spent 170 Years Making Roads Safer
A conversation with Marten Hiekmann, Managing Director of PASS+CO
Marten Hiekmann, the sixth-generation leader of PASS+CO, took over global operations in 2013. Since then, he has expanded the company into more than 110 countries through strategic joint ventures, establishing PASS+CO as a leading global player in roadside safety equipment, installation and services.
Most road users never notice the steel at the edge of the carriageway — until the moment it saves their life. For Marten Hiekmann, Managing Director of PASS+CO, that moment is the whole point. Vehicle restraint systems are often “the last line of defense against serious injury or death” and the company’s conviction is captured in a single phrase: everyone deserves a second chance.
PASS+CO is a family-owned German company dedicated to one mission: making roads safer. With a heritage dating back to 1852, it is the oldest German manufacturer of steel vehicle restraint systems and has built its reputation on engineering excellence, quality and reliability.
Today, the company develops, manufactures, supplies and installs a comprehensive range of roadside safety solutions — safety barriers, bridge parapets, crash cushions, end terminals, motorcycle protection systems and other vehicle restraint products compliant with European standards such as EN 1317.
From its headquarters in Wilnsdorf, Germany, it serves customers across Europe and international markets through a growing network of subsidiaries and partners.
More than 170 years on, the products and technologies have advanced significantly, but the core purpose of protecting lives through effective roadside safety has remained unchanged. Today, PASS+CO collaborates closely with road authorities, contractors and infrastructure partners to develop solutions that enhance road safety, promote sustainable infrastructure development and adhere to the strictest international performance standards.
“As mobility continues to evolve, PASS+CO is committed to combining tradition with innovation”, he explains — investing in new technologies, expanding its international presence and delivering safer roads for communities around the world.
Ask Marten about the biggest challenge facing road safety today, and the answer is keeping pace. Vehicles are becoming larger, heavier and increasingly automated; road networks are carrying more traffic than ever before; and road authorities must balance safety improvements with budget constraints and sustainability goals. It matters because roadside infrastructure is so often the last line of defense.
“Every barrier, bridge parapet, and crash cushion must perform as intended when needed most”, he says. “As an industry, we must continue to invest in innovation, rigorous testing and high-quality manufacturing”.
The greatest opportunity for the next five years, in PASS+CO’s view, lies in a more holistic approach to road safety. Infrastructure, vehicle technology and digital mobility solutions are becoming increasingly interconnected, and roadside safety hardware must evolve alongside them. Greater use of data, improved asset management and closer collaboration between manufacturers, engineers, road authorities and policymakers can help identify where investments will have the greatest impact.
The company also expects increasing demand for sustainable manufacturing processes and products with longer service lives, helping infrastructure owners improve safety while reducing environmental impact over the asset lifecycle.
Rather than highlighting a single flagship project, Marten points to the many road safety installations that protect millions of road users every day all over the world — from manufacturing roadside safety products in LATAM to India, to installing safety barriers from Denmark to South Africa and beyond, on highways, bridges, tunnels and complex road networks where reliable performance is critical.
All of its roadside safety barriers are crash tested, resulting in different containment levels, CE certified, and installed to the same norms and regulations. And as one of the last German family-owned and run businesses in the roadside safety branch, PASS+CO believes in providing partners and customers with “a very human, honest and helpful way” to approach solutions for individual markets across the globe.
The approach differs from conventional solutions in the market because, for PASS+CO, road safety is about more than supplying products — it is about delivering complete solutions. The company combines in-house engineering, manufacturing, installation and technical support to ensure consistent quality throughout every stage of a project, while continued investment in research and testing allows it to develop solutions that meet evolving international standards and perform in real-world conditions.
It is a conversation Marten intends to continue in Geneva. The IRF Annual Conference brings together experts from across the global road sector, and he is particularly looking forward to discussions around innovation, infrastructure resilience, sustainability and the future of road safety — as well as the opportunity to strengthen existing partnerships, build new relationships, and contribute PASS+CO’s experience to conversations about creating safer roads worldwide.
The message to delegates is simple: everyone deserves a second chance. Whether a crash results from a momentary lapse in concentration, an error by another road user, or circumstances beyond anyone’s control, forgiving roadside infrastructure can mean the difference between life and death. “No one should pay with their life for a single mistake — whether it is their own or someone else’s,” he says. “Every barrier we produce is built with one purpose: to give people the best possible chance to walk away from a crash and return home safely.”
PASS+CO is generously supporting the IRF 2026 Annual Conference, taking place in Geneva from 16 to 18 November 2026. Learn more about the conference at https://irfofficial.org/irf-2026-annual-conference.
The Full Interview
Tell us about your organisation — what you do, where you operate and what sets you apart?
PASS+CO is a family-owned German company dedicated to one mission: making roads safer. With a heritage dating back to 1852, we are the oldest German manufacturer of steel vehicle restraint systems and have built our reputation on engineering excellence, quality and reliability. Today, we develop, manufacture, supply and install a comprehensive range of roadside safety solutions, including safety barriers, bridge parapets, crash cushions, end terminals, motorcycle protection systems and other vehicle restraint products compliant with European standards such as EN 1317.
From our headquarters in Wilnsdorf, Germany, we serve customers across Europe and international markets through a growing network of subsidiaries and partners. What sets PASS+CO apart is our ability to offer the complete lifecycle of roadside safety solutions — from engineering and manufacturing to installation and maintenance — combined with decades of practical expertise and a strong commitment to innovation, quality and customer service.
How has your organisation's mission evolved over the years, and what does it look like today?
Since our beginnings more than 170 years ago, PASS+CO has evolved alongside the changing demands of road infrastructure and mobility. Although our products and technologies have advanced significantly, our core purpose of protecting lives through effective roadside safety has remained unchanged.
Today, our mission goes beyond manufacturing high-quality vehicle restraint systems. We collaborate closely with road authorities, contractors and infrastructure partners to develop solutions that enhance road safety, promote sustainable infrastructure development and adhere to the strictest international performance standards. As mobility continues to evolve, PASS+CO is committed to combining tradition with innovation. We are investing in new technologies, expanding our international presence and delivering safer roads for communities around the world.
What is the single biggest challenge facing road safety today, and why does it matter?
One of the greatest challenges to road safety today is ensuring that roadside infrastructure keeps pace with evolving mobility trends. Vehicles are becoming larger and heavier and they are becoming increasingly automated. Meanwhile, road networks are carrying more traffic than ever before and road authorities must balance safety improvements with budget constraints and sustainability goals.
This is important because vehicle restraint systems are often the last line of defence against serious injury or death. Every barrier, bridge parapet and crash cushion must perform as intended when needed most. As an industry, we must continue to invest in innovation, rigorous testing and high-quality manufacturing to ensure that roadside safety infrastructure remains effective under evolving conditions.
Where do you see the greatest opportunity for progress in the next five years?
We see the greatest opportunity in taking a more holistic approach to road safety. Infrastructure, vehicle technology, and digital mobility solutions are becoming increasingly interconnected and roadside safety hardware must evolve alongside them.
Greater use of data, improved asset management and closer collaboration between manufacturers, engineers, road authorities and policymakers can help identify where investments will have the greatest impact. We also expect increasing demand for sustainable manufacturing processes and products with longer service lives, helping infrastructure owners improve safety while reducing environmental impact over the asset lifecycle.
Can you point to a project or deployment that you're particularly proud of, and why?
Rather than highlighting a single project, we are proud of the many road safety installations that protect millions of road users every day all over the world — from manufacturing our roadside safety products in LATAM to India, to the installation of our roadside safety barriers in Denmark to South Africa and beyond. Our vehicle restraint systems have been deployed on highways, bridges, tunnels and complex road networks where reliable performance is critical. In our branch, all products are made the same — all roadside safety barriers are crash tested, resulting in different containment levels, CE certified and installed to the same norms and regulations. As one of the last German family-owned and run businesses in the roadside safety branch, we believe in providing partners and customers with a very human, honest and helpful way to approach solutions for individual markets with our products and services all over the globe.
How does your approach differ from conventional solutions in the market?
At PASS+CO, we believe that road safety is about more than supplying products — it is about delivering complete solutions. We combine in-house engineering, manufacturing, installation and technical support to ensure consistent quality throughout every stage of a project.
Our long history as a manufacturer has given us deep expertise in vehicle restraint technology, while our continued investment in research and testing allows us to develop solutions that meet evolving international standards. This combination of experience, technical capability and customer partnership enables us to deliver reliable, practical solutions that perform in real-world conditions.
What are you most looking forward to at the IRF 2026 Annual Conference?
The IRF Annual Conference brings together experts from across the global road sector, making it an excellent platform for exchanging ideas and learning from one another. We are particularly looking forward to discussions around innovation, infrastructure resilience, sustainability and the future of road safety.
For PASS+CO, the conference is also an opportunity to strengthen existing partnerships, build new relationships, and contribute our experience to conversations about creating safer roads worldwide.
What message do you most want delegates to take away from your participation?
Our message is simple: everyone deserves a second chance. Whether a crash results from a momentary lapse in concentration, an error by another road user or circumstances beyond anyone's control, forgiving roadside infrastructure can mean the difference between life and death.
At PASS+CO, we believe that no one should pay with their life for a single mistake — whether it is their own or someone else's. That belief drives our unwavering commitment to designing, manufacturing and delivering roadside safety systems that meet the highest standards of quality and performance. Every barrier we produce is built with one purpose: to give people the best possible chance to walk away from a crash and return home safely. Because everyone deserves a second chance — and every road deserves infrastructure that can provide it.
Website: https://www.passco.international/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passxco
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/passxco
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/passxco
Green Roads Must Work for Nature: IRF Calls for Biodiversity to Be Built into Every Road Project
22 July | Online - Road infrastructure and biodiversity are often viewed as competing priorities. IRF is advocating for a different approach, one in which nature-positive road design improves environmental outcomes while strengthening road safety, resilience and long-term economic performance.
Speaking during the Community of Practice on Nature and Infrastructure (CoPNI) webinar, IRF Head of Advocacy and Outreach Alice Yiu outlined how the transport sector can better integrate biodiversity into road planning and delivery as part of the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026–2035). She also highlighted the role of the Roadmaps for Change series, developed by IRF with partners Arup, Australia National Transport Research Organisation, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, International Federation of Consulting Engineers, International Road Assessment Programme, ORIS Materials Intelligence and World Wildlife Fund, in providing practical guidance for road agencies seeking to deliver greener infrastructure.
Nature as Infrastructure, Not an Add-On
Yiu presented that biodiversity should be considered a core component of infrastructure performance rather than an environmental requirement added late in project development. Nature-positive interventions can simultaneously improve road safety, climate resilience and ecosystem health.
Examples include wildlife crossings that reduce habitat fragmentation while lowering wildlife-vehicle collisions, nature-based drainage systems that protect both ecosystems and road assets, and vegetation management that balances driver visibility with carbon storage and habitat connectivity. The roadmap also encourages agencies to move beyond simply reducing environmental impacts by actively restoring biodiversity and ecosystem integrity throughout the project lifecycle.
Making the Economic Case
A central message of the presentation was that investing in biodiversity also makes financial sense.
Yiu noted that road agencies respond to evidence demonstrating the cost of inaction. Wildlife-vehicle collisions impose significant economic costs through vehicle damage, injuries and fatalities. Research cited during the presentation shows that preventive measures such as wildlife fencing and crossings can reduce collisions involving large mammals by around 80%, with the threshold at which these investments become cost-effective continuing to fall as collision costs increase.
She also pointed to other infrastructure solutions, including permeable pavements, that can improve safety, reduce maintenance costs and deliver environmental benefits simultaneously. These examples reinforce the importance of considering biodiversity and sustainability during planning and design rather than after project decisions have already been made.
Embedding Nature Throughout the Project Lifecycle
The Green Roads roadmap promotes integrating biodiversity considerations from the earliest stages of infrastructure planning through construction, operation and maintenance.
Using the mitigation hierarchy - avoid, minimise, restore and offset only as a last resort - the guidance encourages road agencies to incorporate biodiversity into policy development, route selection, engineering design, procurement practices and long-term asset management. This approach aims to improve infrastructure performance while reducing environmental impacts over the lifetime of a project.
Contributing to the Green Roads Roadmap
IRF is inviting experts from the Community of Practice on Nature and Infrastructure and the wider transport community to contribute to the peer review of the Green Roads roadmap, which remains open until 10 August.
Feedback from practitioners will help strengthen the guidance before publication and support road agencies in delivering infrastructure that is safer, more resilient and better aligned with biodiversity goals.
To receive the peer review instructions and drafts, please contact Alice Yiu at ayiu@irfofficial.org.
Better Roads, Smarter Choices: A Conversation with Arup's Global Roads and Streets Leader, Mike Evans
In this IRF Executive Talk, Alice Yiu, IRF's Head of Advocacy and Outreach, speaks with Mike Evans, Director at Arup and lead of its global roads and streets business, about how the sector is rethinking what it builds and how.
Evans explains why the old instinct to simply add road capacity no longer holds. The sector now has to win public trust and the answer lies in a shift of perspective, from counting vehicles to counting people, from building big to building right, and from repairing failures to preventing them.
Along the way, the conversation moves from Hong Kong's transit networks to street lighting in Central Asia that extended traders' working hours, to AI models that now spot road cracks faster than any human inspector. What emerges is a picture of an industry with the tools to deliver better service at lower cost, if its leaders are willing to think differently.
The themes of this conversation, trust, delivery and innovation, take centre stage at the IRF 2026 Annual Conference in Geneva, 16 to 18 November. Evans' message to the community ahead of it: embrace the excitement.
Interview Transcript:
Alice Yiu: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the IRF Executive Talk, where the road sector's top minds think out loud about the challenges, ideas and leadership defining our industry. My name is Alice Yiu, I am the Head of Advocacy and Outreach at the International Road Federation, and I'm really delighted to be joined today by Mike Evans, Director at Arup. Mike, welcome.
Mike Evans: Very good to be here. Thank you very much.
Alice Yiu: Thank you very much, Mike, for joining us. For those who are watching, Arup is one of the world's leading and largest global consultancies, with extensive technical and advisory expertise working across a number of sectors, including transport, energy, water, property, cities and more.
Mike, you lead Arup's roads and streets business globally, as well as the transport business in Europe. You're a civil engineer by training, with many years of experience working with transport authorities, governments, and contractors to shape and deliver road and transportation systems that drive connectivity, accessibility, and long-term resilience. So in a nutshell, you're really the ideal person to have this conversation with. And I'm sure it's a very timely one, because we're seeing right now in the road sector a genuine shift, not just in what we're building, but also in why we're building it and who it is meant to serve. So I really look forward to having this conversation with you.
Let's start with a bit of an existential question. Mike, you've spent your career working on roads. What is it about roads that keeps you so passionate about this work?
Mike Evans: I have been fascinated by roads and streets since I was a kid, so I am working in the thing that I always wanted to work in. I enjoy thinking about how people travel around. I come from the west of Ireland, so when I grew up, it was a remote place. I lived in a county on the west coast, very far away from everything. And I can remember that moment of being able to travel, whether it was to walk, to bike as you grow older and then eventually a car. It relates to freedom. It allows you to get to places you could not be.
So for me, it's linked to the fact that people get to have autonomy and get to do the things they want to do. And I don't think we think about that enough. What I do enables people to get to school, to get jobs, to get to hospitals, to do recreation, all of those things. So how you walk, how you cycle, how you use your car, and how we use public transport on our road networks in remote places like where I came from really matters. So I think it's quite an interesting job.
And if I talk to the young people that are working in our teams now, when I started off, we were using cars that had been around for 100 years and road construction materials that had been around for 100 years. It's so much more exciting now. There's so much more technology, a huge amount of evolution in what we can do. You've got electric vehicles reducing emissions. You've got autonomous vehicles. Vehicles are connected to the network, so we can control and influence things much more. The way we think about public transport and cycling facilities, all of this is just so much better than it was when I started. So I think it's also an exciting time to be in the industry.
Alice Yiu: I can hear the passion. I'm not an engineer by training, but I definitely share the passion for transport, and I love some of the keywords you're mentioning. I think what makes roads so unique is that they're really one of the most universal pieces of infrastructure in the world. Everyone uses them every day. There's something very deeply embedded in our lives that we use sometimes without noticing it.
But what we have discussed before with some of our community members is that the sector sometimes struggles to connect with the public, even while being used on a daily basis. Sometimes there's public opposition to road projects, there are community pushbacks, or sometimes people are simply indifferent to what is happening with the roads around them. People perceive roads as noisy, as polluting, as something that divides their neighbourhoods or disrupts nature, and not necessarily something that is done for them. Is that something you see in your work as well? And why has the question of public trust become so important for the road sector today?
Mike Evans: I think there are two parts to answering that question. When you live on a street, or you live on a lane in the countryside and you use it, you understand the benefit that you're getting from it. It relates to your immediate life. But when we build big roads — and I sometimes walk along the edges of our very big motorways, wearing a high-vis jacket and all of that protection — they're not pretty places. They're scary places. They're dangerous places. And immediately, if you're going to have one of these in your neighbourhood or beside where you live, they're not a welcome intrusion.
So it's very important that we explain to people why they're required. But then there's another part of it. An awful lot of the time, for the people who use our road networks, their experience of our road networks is not optimal either. They're not safe, they're congested, they don't enable the journeys that people actually want to make. And people don't have the choices they'd like to have to make their journeys. Sometimes there are people on our road networks in cars on their own who don't want to be in a car on their own, spending too much time.
They'd much rather be on a bus or a train, which are much more convenient, able to read a newspaper or look at their emails, whatever it is. So there's a balance about creating a service, and thinking about the people who use our networks as users and customers, and about their experience. If they're not getting what they want — the intrusion is not optimal and the experience is not optimal — trust is eroded, I suppose, is the way of putting it.
Alice Yiu: I like the word optimal, and I really think this is a word that defines our society these days. In everything we do, we want to ask: are we using our time most effectively? Are we using the asset most effectively? Are we using our money and resources in the most optimal way? So the idea of optimising our infrastructure has so much to do with public trust and legitimacy, and how we spend the money for these road projects.
And that's a really interesting point, because you also mentioned the cars and materials we were running back in those days, and how quickly the sector has evolved. For many decades, success in transport was essentially measured in very limited ways: how many vehicles can we move in a certain period of time, how fast they're moving, how far they can go from one end to another. I read some time ago that global car ownership was around 50 million cars on the road in the 1950s, and now it's around 1.4 billion. That's massive growth over just decades. For the longest time, building more road capacity was the obvious answer to accommodate this phenomenon. How do you think this mindset is evolving today?
Mike Evans: If I go back to when I was a much younger person interested in roads, it was always about building more roads. As a kid, I'd sketch out the roads and they'd be getting bigger and bigger, and they'd be full of more cars. We live in a different age. We understand planetary boundaries. We understand the need for the circular economy. We understand the need to reduce the amount of materials that we use. But more than that — you used the word trust earlier on — we must be trusted by government to provide infrastructure that is efficient. And part of that efficiency is being affordable, so that we use the least amount of not just resources, but money, to build what we need. So that's what's quite exciting, coming back to that word optimal. If we can optimise what we build, use the least amount of space and provide the amount of capacity that is required — but not too much capacity — we build what's needed today and think about how we would provide more efficiently in the future.
Another thing that's quite exciting: you spoke about counting the vehicles that can travel on your road and how fast they can travel. Switching to counting passengers, the number of people that are travelling — once you make that quick change in your thinking, you begin to ask: can I have shared lanes? Can I have more buses on the network? Then there are the things we can do with information technology to help manage the flow on our network.
I was watching a talk on your channel lately where you were discussing that. So it is quite exciting. I often think there's a convergence with the railway network, which was quite a systemised, controlled network. You can see the two modes converging in terms of our use of technology to control the movement of vehicles. But then, thinking beyond that, I'm often struck when I'm reviewing something like a major road around a city or a town bypass. The first thing is trying to understand where people are moving and what people are doing. Most of the trips are actually going to be very close to the place you're looking at. And it's about creating the opportunity for journeys that are shorter — maybe they don't need to be on your road network at all. Maybe if you provide cycling infrastructure, you can reduce the amount of demand on your major road network, as well as giving people more attractive choices.
Alice Yiu: I love it. You mentioned you grew up in Ireland — I actually grew up in Hong Kong, one of the densest cities in the world: 7.5 million people, all packed into a territory of just over 1,000 square kilometres. It's really a very massive city with a lot of people that have very big transport needs. So the throughput of passengers is the key in a city where we really need to optimise every single inch of the territory that we have. And journeys are often very short. We need to make sure that roads are the bloodline of our transport systems, but we won't be able to move if everybody has to drive on roads. We definitely need proper transit systems: we need the railways, we need the buses, we need the cycling. It's interesting that you raised that point, because in the case of Hong Kong, it's very hilly. I never learned how to cycle growing up — quite shamefully, since I work in this industry, though I do know how to bike now. But growing up I couldn't, because we don't have dedicated cycling lanes and it's actually really dangerous to cycle downtown. So I just took the buses, and that's how I learned to navigate my journeys. So the landscape — how the place is geographically set up — really matters, and the transport culture of that community, also really matters in terms of how you design the roads and the transit systems around it.
We keep coming back to the words optimal and efficient, and I want to throw in the word effective as well. If we check the dictionaries they may be a little different, but they're all talking about the same thing: at some point, we want to achieve the intended results of our projects and our programmes. Arup does so many projects around the world. So what do effective roads mean to Arup in practice?
Mike Evans: I didn't realise you were from Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is a really interesting test place if you think about some of the things we've just been talking about. Hong Kong has obviously got a fantastic metro system, with one of the highest rates of public transport use in the world. But when you think about road and street networks in Hong Kong, they're still quite important, because there are trips that can't take place on your fantastic metro system, and we need to provide for those trips to happen on the road and street network. So you need an infrastructure that works. As you mentioned, Hong Kong is constrained in its geography. It's been expanding: reclamation is really important, and when you reclaim, you build really good public transport out to the new residential areas, but you need road infrastructure that goes out to serve that as well.
And as we build that, we need to think about being really efficient in how we're doing it. An example: if you have a major bridge, rather than widen the bridge, can you use the hard shoulder as a lane, using traffic control to manage it so that lane can be used safely? How you toll is another way you can make the network more efficient. We've worked on removing hard tolling and replacing it with electronic tolling, which allows traffic to move more freely. It also frees up the land that the tolling infrastructure was taking, to be available for other things. So all of these things come together.
Another really interesting thing about Hong Kong is the bus system. How can you make sure your bus system is working really well? We've been working currently in the UK with the Department for Transport on how you make bus-optimised system. And coming back to Hong Kong, we think about autonomous vehicles. It's really important that autonomous vehicles, when we deploy them, are used to move people not as individuals, but as a shared form of mobility. So in that hierarchy of modes, you have heavy rail to move large numbers of people, you have metros to move them in densely populated areas, but even in a city like Hong Kong, you can use a shared autonomous taxi to move four people, which is the right number of people to move. So that really comes back to optimised, and that word efficient: each trip is served by the right mode.
Alice Yiu: I like that definition a lot. There's no silver bullet per se in terms of sustainable transport options. All of our trips have an intended outcome, and sometimes you need different modes to get you to that outcome. Sometimes we talk about Push and Pull, sometimes we talk about the Avoid–Shift–Improve Framework, which essentially says we can't just go with one type of solution. We need different types of policies, innovations, and interventions: those that help avoid unnecessary motorised trips, those that shift to more sustainable transport modes like public transport, cycling, and walking, and those that improve the energy efficiency of the vehicles, the design, the energy sources, and the operations of the road systems. So it's really a spectrum of interventions that we have to consider.
We've been talking about the developed part of the world. In Dublin, you have well-developed road networks, probably very nice quality and standards?
Mike Evans: Not as much as you'd think. We have a big road with a lot of congestion in Dublin, which people talk about a lot, and we need to build public transport to help solve the problem.
Alice Yiu: How's it coming along?
Mike Evans: In Dublin, we hope to be working on a major metro scheme to connect the airport to the city centre, and that's one way of getting people off the orbital road, the M50. But the M50 is quite an interesting road as well, because it's a very carefully managed road — it has to be, to allow that number of people to flow around it. But you were trying to move the conversation on to places in the developing world, and I think that's really interesting. In the work that we do, for example, we were working in Egypt, thinking about how we build infrastructure that will be climate resilient. That's really important to think about. This week we've had the really hot weather in Europe, but in other places that I travel to, the effect of climate is much more dramatic in terms of hurricanes and intense weather. So we need to build climate-resilient infrastructure.
It's also really interesting. If you take my learnings, there's always the opportunity in those places to leapfrog past places like Dublin and avoid the mistakes that were made in the planning of Dublin, a very spread-out city: build infrastructure that allows more compact cities and better planning. But also in terms of rural infrastructure: how do we build road networks that are dispersed, and not jump to a large motorway solution when a more appropriately sized piece of infrastructure would be the right answer?
Alice Yiu: I'd like to follow up on that, because it's a really interesting subject. When you look at the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN, how they define rural access is essentially proximity: the share of the population living close to all-season roads. So it speaks to resilience — whether a road is operational across all seasons and times of the year — but it only speaks about proximity. It doesn't really talk about how long it takes for you to get to that road, and it doesn't say much about the conditions of the pavement on the way to that bigger road that connects you to other parts of the city. So in terms of rural networks — you talked about smaller infrastructure — what would those things be, and how do they make up that first- and last-mile connectivity that can serve developing regions?
Mike Evans: Last and first mile is very different in a rural context than it is in an urban context. And the point you're making is that major national road networks rely on the secondary and tertiary roads to bring people to them, to allow the journeys that need to be made. So you do need to think of roads as a system.
Another point you mentioned there is the maintenance of a network. It's really important that when we're building, we think about the life cycle of what we're building and make correct life-cycle assessments. That's always important in terms of finance, so that the infrastructure we build is affordable to maintain and operate after it's built; it's not just about coming in and building something big.
But it's also now much more important in terms of carbon. Earlier on, the topic of circular economy came up between us. Some of the work that we've done in the roads industry around taking a much more sustainable view of materials. There have been huge improvements in terms of asphalt: the amount of recycled asphalt content that we can use, and we've massively reduced the temperatures at which we lay asphalt. So I'm really proud of the fact that if you take road construction materials, I think we're much closer to net-zero construction materials than other parts of the construction industry.
And whether you're in the developed world or the developing world, I'm often struck that we don't take into account that once you build a major road, it becomes a fast road and you encourage journeys — you induce trips that were not there. You need to think about providing infrastructure that is close to people, which reduces their need to take the trip in the first place. That is another way of thinking about how the system works: how the education system, for example, interacts with the transport system, and how we get that system to work efficiently. Back to that word efficiently again.
Alice Yiu: Yes, and I really like your point, because we as human beings interact with the infrastructure that we're placed in. A lot of times people see roads as static, because they are concrete, they're built there and they don't move. But we react to them and that changes the patterns of our behaviour, whether it's driving or using public transport or other modes. So it's a very dynamic system. Roads are very dynamic, even though they're static. That's the irony of it. If we don't have this in our scenarios, in our planning, with the foresight to know what's going to come when we build a road, we're not going to be able to accommodate the changes in the local community that responds to that road.
I also like your points about circularity, the materials being used, and maintenance. I feel these are also an opportunity for strengthening local communities in terms of social and economic opportunities. Do you have any examples of how this affects local communities in terms of socio-economic opportunities and growth?
Mike Evans: An interesting question for an engineer. At the end of the day, what we're building is for our society. I was reading a report last week about work that we were doing in Central Asia. The project focuses on the impacts of lighting provisions to the local community that uses the road. Lighting is something you need to carefully manage: if you provide too much of it, you use too much energy. But when you provide lighting, you make the space safer, and you allow more inclusive trips. What was really interesting about this report was that it also allowed street traders' hours to be extended, because the hours during which it was safe to work were longer.
Another important point is about planning. How we do things has improved drastically. When I started off working, we used traffic models that thought about cars, and how fast and efficient we want them to be. Now we model people, and we think about the agency that they have. We use agent-based modelling to consider the actual journeys that people are making.
I think that's a way of thinking that improves the outcome for people, as distinct from thinking about what you're doing just as a conduit for moving vehicles. And when you begin to design in response to that, you get much better outcomes, you get more efficient infrastructure, and you get to save some money, because you don't have to build as much of it.
Alice Yiu: Do you think we're better at measuring these outcomes than five years ago?
Mike Evans: I do. One of the things I'm astounded by, and intrigued by, is how AI is beginning to change what we can analyse. I think that is going to be really exciting in the next two to three years. It improves how we think about things.
Coming back to how you analyse asphalt: our ability to see the defects on the road network. We used to examine the videos that came in and identify the cracks ourselves. Now, having trained the AI model to find the cracks for us, we can process an awful lot more information. And that begins to change things. You bring that together with connected vehicles and harness that technology. That's extraordinarily exciting as well.
Alice Yiu: Last month I was actually attending the World Transport Convention in Tianjin, China. Of all places in the world, China is a very leading figure in terms of AI application in the road sector. It was a full day of symposiums, one technical presentation after another about AI, automation, data, self-driving, you name it. There's so much on offer in the innovation space. It was like going to a carnival for a transport-passionate person, just sitting there and listening to all the new things happening. But you mentioned something that was also a recurring theme I heard from the experts there: this idea of a transport system being preventive versus being responsive. Can you walk us through the difference between preventive and responsive, and how technology is making a difference?
Mike Evans: In the world that I work in, we have very big pieces of infrastructure. Bridges, for example: we tend to take an approach to a bridge that we build it to last for a very long time; our design life for a bridge will be 80 to 120 years. It's really interesting to contrast that with the other asset that we have, which is asphalt. Asphalt has a shorter life, so we've always thought about asphalt in terms of managing its deterioration and being able to predict its maintenance. And the really important thing with road surfaces is that you do preventative maintenance, which extends their lifespan and makes the deterioration curve much shallower.
I think it's going to be really interesting whether we can take that approach and apply it to those other, longer-lived assets. And what becomes really interesting is that as we refurbish things, we can apply technology and manage the asset in real time. This is where it gets really connected: the prospect of being able to measure the load on our infrastructure and respond to it.
Being responsive is where you see the problem arise and then repair it at that point. It is much more expensive than taking a preventative approach. This comes back to a proper life-cycle approach to our assets: well-managed assets. And to bring it back to the start, you used the word “trust”. If we can demonstrate that we're providing value for money in maintaining and operating efficient networks, and explain that this is a much cheaper approach to our infrastructure than building it, letting it deteriorate, and then replacing it, which is much more expensive.
Of course, maintaining is the most circular approach you can take in the first place: keep it in use, reuse. These things are all part of the system we're trying to provide. And it is quite interesting and exciting, as I said earlier, that these techniques are becoming available to us.
Alice Yiu: You're very right, and it's not just value for money. A lot of the time it's value for taxpayers' money, isn't it? So it's absolutely important to prove that point: there's an economic case for good maintenance and life-cycle approaches. The traditional approach is essentially a system that reacts to failure. You wait for a failure to be reported and then go and fix it.
There's a newer and better way we can approach things, whether it's road safety, maintenance, climate resilience, or resolving congestion and traffic management. All of it can take on that mindset, in order to save money, save time, and actually improve the operations of the agencies and authorities that take care of those assets.
Essentially, that's what we're trying to do at the International Road Federation: influence the sector with that mindset with better practice, better policies, better innovation. Colleagues like you are very helpful in sharing insights and foresight with our community, to see what new changes we can take on today and how we can apply them to practice.
So, looking ahead: what do you think will define successful road agencies and infrastructure leaders over the next decade?
Mike Evans: Well, let's talk a little bit about what they're going to encounter. In well-developed road networks, the networks are old, they're aging, and they're going to need to be refurbished and replaced. The climate is going to provide us with a lot more challenges, so we're going to have to think about resilient infrastructure. And in the face of all of this, societal change, changes to our economic growth, governments are challenged by funding. Join up all of those things, and that's what we're going to have to face.
What success is going to look like is how we deal with all of that. I think there's huge opportunity in the new infrastructure that we build to bring new technology onto the system. And in the networks that we already have, as we refurbish them and make them future-fit, we can make them much better.
It's really interesting to me that in places like Germany and the UK, we get to fix some of the mistakes that we made the first time around with some of this infrastructure. Thinking about nature on our infrastructure, for example, and using nature-positive solutions to deal with some of the changing weather that we're facing, can actually be a more efficient way to do things.
When we look at the network in the future, success will look like this: we've taken the connected power of vehicles, as well as the autonomous vehicles that are coming onto our network, to manage flows on our network, and we're using connected vehicles to help us manage the infrastructure. We were just speaking about preventative maintenance, so using connected vehicles as a live feed on the condition of our road network. And if you take the power that AI brings and bring that all together, what success looks like is a much better service at a lower cost.
Alice Yiu: It really requires agencies and leaders to think out of the box, doesn't it? You need to think in a very holistic way and systematically address all these issues together, but not without solutions.
As you've mentioned, there are already examples being applied, and there are companies like Arup that are ready to provide that service to solve these problems.
We're coming to the end of our conversation, sadly. If you're aware of IRF, you probably know that we're hosting our upcoming 2026 Annual Conference in Geneva, from the 16th to the 18th of November, under the theme we just talked about: trust, delivery, innovation, topics I have really enjoyed talking with you today.
And thanks to Arup, who has so generously sponsored and supported our flagship event of the year. We are really looking forward to continuing these conversations with our community.
So Mike, as final words: if you could leave one message for the global road community ahead of the IRF 2026 Annual Conference, what would it be?
Mike Evans: Embrace the excitement. This is an exciting industry that we work in, and I'm really interested in getting younger people involved in what is a fantastic industry.
Alice Yiu: That's great and I hope I'm one of the younger people you can get into it. Thank you very much, Mike, for this wonderful conversation. I learned a lot, and I'm sure our viewers have as well.
I look forward to continuing these ideas and to meeting you in person in Geneva in just a couple of months. With that, I will close the conversation for now, and we'll continue it in Geneva. Thank you very much.
Mike Evans: Thank you. Bye-bye.
IRF Launches Third Batch of International Registry for Road Safety Auditors in India
21 July | New Delhi, India - IRF has commenced the third batch of the International Registry for Road Safety Auditors, a 10-day internationally certified training programme being held from 20 to 31 July 2026 at the Central Road Research Institute - Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI), with the support of TotalEnergies Foundation.
The first Road Safety Audit (RSA) Training Course was hosted at the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), followed by a second edition in Mumbai. Together, the two programmes trained 44 road safety professionals, with 35 participants successfully admitted to the International Road Safety Auditors Registry as Observer Road Safety Auditors, strengthening India's growing network of internationally recognised road safety practitioners.
The third edition is led by internationally renowned road safety expert and IRF Lead Trainer Eur Ing Miguel-Angel Serrano Santos, whose decades of global experience in road safety engineering and auditing have contributed to improving road safety practices worldwide.
Designed to build world-class expertise, the programme combines international best practices with practical applications in road safety audits, Safe System principles, crash investigation, vulnerable road user safety, work zone safety, and road infrastructure risk assessment.
The inaugural session was chaired by Dr. C. Ravi Sekhar, Director of CSIR-CRRI, in the presence of Dr. K. Ravinder, Senior Scientist at CSIR-CRRI, and Ms. Aruna Shankari, Chief Operating Officer of the IRF India Chapter.
During the opening session, the dignitaries underscored the importance of capacity building, knowledge sharing and international collaboration in strengthening India's road safety ecosystem. They highlighted the need to develop highly qualified professionals capable of applying internationally recognised methodologies to support the country's Vision Zero ambitions and deliver safer road infrastructure.
The programme has brought together participants from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), CSIR-CRRI, highway operators, consultants, concessionaires, infrastructure companies and other road safety professionals from across India. It provides a valuable platform for technical learning, professional networking and the exchange of international best practices among practitioners working across the road sector.
Through practical exercises, real-world case studies, field inspections and technical discussions, participants will gain the knowledge and skills required to conduct road safety audits in line with internationally accepted standards. A strong focus on the Safe System approach ensures that participants develop practical competencies that can be applied directly to improving road infrastructure safety.
FEDORA EU Project: Why cities and public authorities matter to the future of mobility
IRF Project Manager Iona Kirkpatrick was recently featured by the FEDORA Project, discussing how the initiative is encouraging a new way of thinking about multimodal transport networks.
In the interview, Iona explains that FEDORA is not only making complex mobility systems more understandable and transparent, but also helping cities and public authorities reimagine how multimodal networks can be planned, managed and optimised to support more connected, efficient and resilient mobility.
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This article was republished from FEDORA
Cities and public authorities are at the centre of the transition towards smarter, safer and more sustainable mobility. They understand local transport challenges, shape policy priorities and play a key role in turning innovative ideas into solutions that work in real urban environments.
In this video, Iona Kirkpatrick, EU Project Manager at the International Road Federation, shares her message for cities and public authorities on the importance of FEDORA and the value of their involvement in the project.
FEDORA is developing new approaches to multimodal traffic management by connecting data, optimisation services and simulation tools within a shared framework. This work can support authorities in understanding complex mobility patterns, testing different scenarios and making more informed decisions before introducing changes across transport networks.
The participation of cities is essential to ensure that these solutions respond to real needs, reflect different local conditions and can be transferred to other regions. Their knowledge also helps the project consider the regulatory, operational and organisational factors that influence how new mobility solutions are adopted.
Watch the video to hear why cooperation with cities and public authorities is vital for shaping practical, adaptable and future-ready mobility systems.
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Read the full transcript
Question: What message does FEDORA send to cities and authorities?
Iona Kirkpatrick: As part of FEDORA, the idea is using the pilot sites that we’ve created and that we integrate more actors in the transport scenario. So, many of us may be familiar with people who are engaged in day-to-day commute, possibly using private cars, maybe people who also make use of conventional tram networks to get to work, to take children to school.
The idea of FEDORA is that essentially, not only do we incorporate people who are using their own private vehicle, but also the idea that actually, there are many actors in the transport sphere. For example, also people who are wandering along the road whilst you’re traveling on your car or on the bus – so people who are maybe using – making use of cycle networks.
The idea of FEDORA is to use the pilot sites to encourage people to think also that there are other people also making use of the infrastructure – the road infrastructure that we all know that is being used for conventional vehicles and I think that the idea of that is also maybe to create cities where there are not only very transparent transport networks for those of us who are using it but also that perhaps more vulnerable road users, for example maybe people who suffer from a disability or people who, are for various reasons, may be intimidated to use public transport or their own vehicles – might also be encouraged to use those systems on the basis that really transport and mobility are there for society and if it isn’t there for society then it doesn’t necessarily have a purpose.
As a result, the idea of FEDORA is not only make things more comprehensible and slightly more transparent, but also to encourage people to maybe think about multi-modal networks in a very new way.
Smarter Asset Management Starts with Better Decisions: Register to IRF's Road Asset Management Course
Road agencies today are expected to deliver safer, more resilient and reliable road networks while managing ageing infrastructure, increasing climate risks and tightening budgets. Meeting these expectations demands smarter, data-driven approaches to managing infrastructure throughout its lifecycle.
To help professionals respond to these needs, IRF is offering the Next Generation Road Asset Management: Smart Strategies for Resilient and High-Performing Road Networks Course, an online course taking place from 27 October to 5 November 2026.
Across four live sessions, participants will explore the latest practices in performance-based asset management, predictive maintenance and digital infrastructure management to support better investment decisions and long-term network performance.
From Reactive Maintenance to Strategic Asset Management
Modern asset management is increasingly driven by performance, risk and evidence rather than fixed maintenance schedules. The course examines how leading road agencies are using condition data, predictive analysis and digital technologies to improve decision-making, extend asset life and maximise the value of infrastructure investments.
Participants will gain practical frameworks that can be adapted to different institutional settings, whether managing national highways or local road networks.
During the programme, participants will learn how to:
- Define appropriate levels of service for different road networks.
- Apply lifecycle thinking to maintenance planning.
- Prioritise interventions using condition assessments and risk analysis.
- Support investment decisions through performance indicators and multi-criteria analysis.
- Incorporate predictive analytics, monitoring systems and digital tools into asset management practices.
- Integrate safety, resilience and operational performance into long-term infrastructure planning.
What the Course Covers
The programme combines strategic concepts with practical implementation through four interactive online sessions.
Participants begin by exploring the principles of modern road asset management, including governance, service levels and lifecycle management. They then examine how agencies collect and interpret condition data to prioritise maintenance and investment decisions.
The course continues with predictive asset management, demonstrating how digital technologies, monitoring systems and forecasting techniques support more proactive maintenance strategies. The final session focuses on implementation, covering governance, funding models, performance-based delivery and organisational practices that enable agencies to embed asset management into day-to-day operations.
Designed for Infrastructure Professionals
The course is intended for professionals responsible for planning, maintaining and managing road infrastructure assets, including road agency managers, maintenance engineers, asset management specialists, infrastructure planners, consultants, multilateral development bank teams and professionals working in resilience, road safety and infrastructure digitalisation.
Learn from an Industry Leader
The programme is led by Scott Bloxsom, CEO and Co-owner of Essency and a Chartered Professional Engineer with more than three decades of international experience. Having advised road agencies across Australia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America, Scott brings extensive expertise in asset management systems, Performance-Based Contracts and the application of ISO 55000 standards to improve infrastructure performance and long-term value.
Register Now
As road networks become more complex and expectations for performance continue to grow, agencies need professionals who can make informed, evidence-based infrastructure decisions.
This course provides the practical knowledge, tools and international perspectives needed to modernise road asset management and build more resilient, high-performing networks.
Registration Open for IRF Course on Managing Speed in the Safe System
Registration is now open for the the latest IRF Course titled Managing Speed in the Safe System: Engineering, Enforcement and Data-Driven Decision Making, an online training programme taking place from 13 to 22 October 2026.
Delivered over 12 hours across four live sessions, the course equips road authorities, engineers, police leaders and transport professionals with practical strategies to reduce speed-related crashes through safer road design, evidence-based enforcement and data-driven decision-making. Drawing on international case studies and globally recognised best practices, participants will gain the knowledge and tools needed to develop speed management programmes that deliver measurable safety outcomes while reflecting local institutional and financial realities.
Excessive and inappropriate speed continues to be one of the leading contributors to road traffic deaths worldwide. Addressing this challenge calls for a Safe System approach that integrates engineering, enforcement, policy and data to create road environments where safe speeds become the natural outcome.
This course provides participants with practical methods to translate these principles into effective action.
Learn How to Develop Effective Speed Management Programmes
The programme provides a structured framework for diagnosing speed-related risks, selecting evidence-based interventions and evaluating their effectiveness. Participants will strengthen their ability to:
- Understand the relationship between speed, crash severity and survivability.
- Diagnose speed-related risks using crash data, conflict analysis and emerging digital tools.
- Select engineering and enforcement measures suited to different road environments.
- Design integrated speed management programmes that combine engineering, enforcement and public engagement.
- Measure the effectiveness of interventions using key performance indicators and Crash Modification Factors (CMFs).
- Develop implementation plans that reflect local institutional and financial realities.
A Four-Part Learning Journey
The course is delivered through four interactive online sessions, each addressing a critical component of effective speed management.
The first session explores why speed remains the most important factor influencing road safety, examining Safe System principles, human tolerance to crash forces, speed thresholds and emerging technologies such as Intelligent Speed Assistance.
The second session focuses on using data to support engineering decisions, covering speed data collection, AI-assisted crash and conflict analysis, network screening and modern analytical tools for road agencies.
Participants will then examine how road design can encourage appropriate speeds through self-explaining roads, traffic calming measures, gateway treatments, school zone design and other engineering interventions suitable for both urban and rural environments.
The final session brings these elements together by examining enforcement technologies, institutional coordination, public engagement, monitoring and evaluation, before concluding with the development of a practical Safe Speed Action Plan.
Who Should Attend?
The course is designed for professionals responsible for improving road safety and managing transport infrastructure, including:
- Road authorities and highway engineers
- Municipal engineers
- Multilateral development bank project teams
- Road safety agencies
- Traffic police leadership
- Engineering consultancies
- Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) professionals
Learn from Internationally Recognised Experts
The programme is led by three internationally respected specialists with extensive experience in Safe System implementation, road safety engineering and traffic enforcement.
Ali Zayerzadeh has more than 20 years of experience leading national speed management initiatives, crash analysis programmes and evidence-based road safety strategies across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Eur Ing Miguel-Angel Serrano Santos, Lead Trainer at the International Road Federation, has delivered road safety and traffic management programmes for engineers and practitioners across Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Philip Wijers is an internationally recognised expert in automated traffic enforcement, transport policy and public-private partnerships, advising governments and international organisations on effective enforcement strategies.
Register Today
As governments seek to reduce fatalities and serious injuries through Safe System implementation, professionals need practical tools that can be applied immediately within their organisations. This course combines international best practice with real-world experience, equipping participants to make informed decisions, implement effective interventions and strengthen long-term road safety performance.
Register now to build the knowledge and practical skills needed to deliver safer roads through integrated speed management.
Crossing the Street Should Not Be an Act of Courage
Rethinking Pedestrian Safety in Latin America
Valeria Carrion Moreno
IRF Young Professional Programme Leader | Transport, Urban Mobility and Road Safety Specialist, Peru
I am a transport, urban mobility and road safety specialist from Peru, working across transport policy, traffic management, transport impact assessment, tactical urbanism and safer street design. Through my role in MOVISS, a civil society organisation promoting sustainable mobility and road safety, I have seen how pedestrian safety depends not only on preventing crashes, but on whether streets allow people to move with autonomy, dignity and protection from the first step of their journey.
Introduction
In many Latin American cities, the most revealing part of the transport system is not the highway interchange, the new bus corridor or the metro station. It is the crossing. That is where policy becomes real, where speed, design, enforcement and accessibility either protect pedestrians or leave them to negotiate their own safety. It is where an older adult may run out of signal time, where a driver may or may not yield, and where a wheelchair user may be forced onto the roadway because the sidewalk disappears.
Safer streets are shaped not only by rules, but by enforcement, design and everyday expectations. I felt this clearly last year while visiting Tacna in Peru and Arica in Chile, two neighbouring border cities where the pedestrian experience felt different. In one, crossing required caution and negotiation. In the other, drivers stopped almost as soon as a pedestrian entered the crossing. It was not formal evidence, but it was a powerful reminder that the same act, crossing the street, can feel entirely different depending on how a city chooses to protect people.
The Gap Is Not Knowledge. It Is Implementation.
Latin America does not lack road safety language. Across the region, transport plans increasingly refer to sustainable mobility, vulnerable road users, Vision Zero, school zones, accessibility, traffic calming and the Safe System approach. The problem is not that the sector has failed to learn the vocabulary. The problem is that the vocabulary has not consistently changed the street.
This is especially visible in pedestrian safety. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.19 million people die on the world’s roads every year, with more than half of fatalities occurring among pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where nine in ten road deaths occur (World Health Organization, 2023a). In the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization reports that deaths among motorcyclists, pedestrians and cyclists rose from 39 percent to 47 percent of total road fatalities between 2009 and 2021. Pedestrians alone represented 17 percent of road deaths in the region in 2021 (Pan American Health Organization, 2025).
An earlier regional benchmarking study reached a similar conclusion. In a ten-country study of Latin America, the International Transport Forum found that pedestrians were the largest or second largest group of road deaths in seven countries, and recommended giving priority to pedestrian facilities, speed management and safer access to public transport (International Transport Forum, 2017).
Pedestrian deaths and injuries are still too often treated as the result of exposure, informality or individual risk taking. But exposure does not explain everything. Research from Lima, one of Latin America’s largest urban areas, illustrates how these risks are produced at street level. It has shown that the walking environment is associated with pedestrian and motor vehicle collisions, and that the presence of a bus stop was associated with a threefold increase in the risk of a pedestrian collision (Quistberg et al., 2015a; Quistberg et al., 2015b).
These findings matter because they show that risk is not only carried by the person walking. It is also produced by where cities place crossings, sidewalks, stops, lanes and waiting spaces.
People cross where their purposes and destinations require them to cross, not only where the city has made crossing safe. They walk where the sidewalk exists, or where it disappears. They wait where the bus stops, not necessarily where the crossing is safe. They adapt to roads designed to move vehicles faster than bodies can safely tolerate.
That is why the pedestrian safety challenge in Latin America is not mainly a technical knowledge gap. It is a delivery gap. We know the principles. We know the countermeasures. We know the consequences of inaction. What remains unresolved is whether cities are willing to make pedestrian safety measurable, funded, enforceable and politically non-negotiable.
What Cities Choose to Build and What They Still Need to Prove
The implementation gap is also visible in what cities choose to build, measure and enforce. Regional reviews show that Latin America is not starting from zero. Countries and cities have developed road safety agencies, observatories, infrastructure assessment tools, school zone interventions, speed management measures and safer street pilots. But they also show a persistent problem. Progress is fragmented, and instruments do not always translate into safer crossings, slower streets, continuous sidewalks or protected access to public transport (Pinto et al., 2023; International Transport Forum, 2017) .
At different levels of government, Peru, Mexico and Chile have adopted or promoted lower urban speed limits, safer school environments, traffic calming guidance and enforcement tools (Cámara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Unión, 2023; Comisión Nacional de Seguridad de Tránsito & Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo de Chile, 2025; Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones del Perú, 2024a, 2024b).
At the city level, initiatives such as Bogotá’s long-term pedestrian policy, Mexico City’s Pasos Seguros and Fotocívicas, Quito’s school zone markings and raised crossings, and Fortaleza’s low-speed areas show that the region has begun to move from policy language toward physical intervention (Global Designing Cities Initiative, 2019; Institute for Transportation and Development Policy México, 2022; Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito, 2023; Secretaría de Movilidad de la Ciudad de México, 2021; Bogotá Mayor’s Office, 2023).
These examples should be recognised, but not romanticised. They show that Latin America already has tools, policies and local experiments in motion. They also reveal the next challenge. The region now needs to prove whether these interventions are changing the street in ways that matter for pedestrians, including lower operating speeds, safer crossings, continuous and accessible sidewalks, protected school environments and fewer serious injuries and deaths.
This is especially important for speed management. International evidence shows that lower urban speeds can produce significant road safety benefits, particularly where people and vehicles mix (World Health Organization, 2023b; Yannis & Michelaraki, 2025). But lower limits do not become real only because they are written into law. Recent research using large-scale street and speed data found that the mere introduction of lower speed limits is not sufficient to reduce driving speeds effectively when street design does not support compliance (Orsi et al., 2025).
The gap between the rule and the street is where pedestrian safety is won or lost.
The Lima evidence mentioned earlier illustrates one part of a wider regional problem. Across Latin America, national reforms may align with international recommendations, while local investment does not always show whether streets are being redesigned around people. In some cities, projects focused on vehicle flow and road capacity still receive greater political visibility than pedestrian safety, accessibility and safer access to public transport. When this happens, reforms remain incomplete.
The Questions Worth Asking Now
Pedestrian safety should not depend on isolated pilots, temporary urbanism or the political visibility of a single school zone. Pilots matter, but they are not enough. A raised crossing should not be exceptional near a school. A refuge island should not be considered a design luxury on a wide avenue. Safe access to bus stops should not depend on a special project. Universal accessibility should not be added after the road is built. These should be standards, budget lines and audit requirements.
A people-centred safety agenda should start from the opposite premise. Streets should not require assistance as a condition for mobility. Crossings, signals, tactile paving, ramps, refuge islands and walking times should be designed so that autonomy is protected by the environment, not delegated to whoever happens to be nearby.
The next step is to move from counting deaths to reading risk. Crash data will always matter, but waiting for deaths to accumulate before intervening is incompatible with a preventive approach. Conflict analysis, speed studies, pedestrian counts, accessibility audits, near-miss observation, school zone risk mapping and public transport access assessments should be part of ordinary road safety management.
Are school zones physically designed for 30 km/h, or merely signed as such? Are public transport projects required to include safe pedestrian access audits? Are crossings designed for children, older adults, wheelchair users and caregivers? Are governments willing to redesign streets even when it means reducing vehicle speed or vehicle space?
These are not rhetorical questions. They determine whether Latin America’s next decade of transport policy will protect people from the first step of their journey.
The timing matters. We are entering the home stretch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030, while the United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport 2026–2035 is just beginning (World Health Organization, 2021; United Nations, 2023). Latin America does not need another decade of plans that sound safe on paper but fail at the crossing. It needs streets where safety is visible, measurable and built into the first step of every trip.
The question is no longer whether the region knows what to do. The question is whether we are willing to build it now.
Because crossing the street should not be an act of courage.
References
Cámara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Unión. (2023). Ley General de Movilidad y Seguridad Vial. Diario Oficial de la Federación. https://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/LGMSV.pdf
Comisión Nacional de Seguridad de Tránsito & Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo de Chile. (2025). Guía para la implementación de Zonas de Tránsito Calmado. Gobierno de Chile.https://www.minvu.gob.cl/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Guia-ZTC_nov_2025.pdf
Global Designing Cities Initiative. (2019, December 10). Reclaiming space for pedestrians in downtown Fortaleza. https://globaldesigningcities.org/update/metrics-matter/
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy México. (2022). Expansión y fortalecimiento del programa Fotocívicas en CDMX. https://mexico.itdp.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1.-Expansion-y-fortalecimiento-del-programa-Fotocivicas-en-CDMX-Policy-Brief.pdf
International Transport Forum. (2017). Benchmarking road safety in Latin America, Case-specific policy analysis. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/benchmarking-road-safety-in-latin-america_530f11da-en.html
Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones del Perú. (2024a, January 14). Nuevos límites de velocidad en zonas urbanas a nivel nacional. Plataforma del Estado Peruano. https://www.gob.pe/26617-nuevos-limites-de-velocidad-en-zonas-urbanas-a-nivel-nacional
Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones del Perú. (2024b). Entornos Escolares Seguros, un compromiso con la seguridad vial. Plataforma del Estado Peruano.https://www.gob.pe/institucion/mtc/campa%C3%B1as/48229-entornos-escolares-seguros-un-compromiso-con-la-seguridad-vial
Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. (2023, December 20). Proyectos ejecutados por el Municipio mejoran la seguridad vial. Quito Informa. https://www.quitoinforma.gob.ec/2023/12/20/proyectos-ejecutados-por-el-municipio-mejoran-la-seguridad-vial/
Orsi, G., Venverloo, T., La Grotteria, A., Fugiglando, U., Duarte, F., Santi, P., & Ratti, C. (2025). Street design and driving behavior, Evidence from a large-scale study in Milan, Amsterdam, and Dubai. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04434
Pan American Health Organization. (2025, January 22). New PAHO report on road safety highlights slow and uneven progress in reducing traffic deaths in the Americas. https://www.paho.org/en/news/22-1-2025-new-paho-report-road-safety-highlights-slow-and-uneven-progress-reducing-traffic
Pinto, A. M., Díaz, C., Zamora, E., Café, E., Ponce de León, M., Sosa, M., & Cortés, R. (Eds.). (2023). Seguridad vial en América Latina y el Caribe, Tras un decenio de acción y perspectivas para una movilidad más segura. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. https://publications.iadb.org/en/road-safety-latin-america-and-caribbean-after-decade-action-prospects-safer-mobility
Quistberg, D. A., Koepsell, T. D., Boyle, L. N., Miranda, J. J., Johnston, B. D., & Ebel, B. E. (2015a). The walking environment in Lima, Peru and pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions, An exploratory analysis. Traffic Injury Prevention, 16(3), 314–321. https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/214575
Quistberg, D. A., Koepsell, T. D., Johnston, B. D., Boyle, L. N., Miranda, J. J., & Ebel, B. E. (2015b). Bus stops and pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions in Lima, Peru, A matched case-control study. Injury Prevention, 21(e1), e15–e22. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2013-041023
Secretaría de Movilidad de la Ciudad de México. (2021). Programa Integral de Seguridad Vial de la Ciudad de México 2021–2024. https://www.semovi.cdmx.gob.mx/storage/app/media/PISVI-2021-2024_.pdf
Bogotá Mayor’s Office. (2023). Distrito presenta Política Pública del Peatón, por una ciudad caminable y segura https://bogota.gov.co/mi-ciudad/movilidad/presentada-la-politica-publica-del-peaton-por-una-ciudad-caminable
United Nations. (2023). United Nations Decade of Sustainable Transport 2026–2035. https://sdgs.un.org/un-decade-sustainable-transport-2026-2035
World Health Organization. (2021). Global plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021–2030. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/global-plan-for-the-decade-of-action-for-road-safety-2021-2030
World Health Organization. (2023a). Global status report on road safety 2023. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240086517
World Health Organization. (2023b). Speed management, A road safety manual for decision-makers and practitioners (2nd ed.). https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/speed-management--a-road-safety-manual-for-decision-makers-and-practitioners.-2nd-edition
Yannis, G., & Michelaraki, E. (2025). Effectiveness of 30 km/h speed limit, A literature review. Journal of Safety Research, 92, 490–503. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2024.11.003
The “Road Victims” We Don't Count
Rethinking Road Safety Through a Broader Public Health Approach
Steffel Ludivin Feudjio Tezong | IRF Young Professional Programme Leader
I am a transport specialist working across Africa and internationally, where I support governments, development partners and research centres in designing safer, healthier and more sustainable transport systems. This article reflects my belief that road safety should be viewed not only through the lens of crashes, but as a broader public health challenge.
Road safety has long been measured primarily by fatalities and serious injuries. Every year, around 1.19 million people lose their lives on the world's roads, making road traffic injuries the leading cause of death among young people aged 5–29 years [1]. These figures have rightly driven global action, from the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety to the Sustainable Development Goals [2,3]
Yet I believe we are still counting only part of the problem.
The more I work in transport, the more I wonder whether road safety has become too focused on crashes alone. A transport system can harm health long before, or without, a collision. Polluted air, traffic noise and environments that discourage walking and cycling quietly contribute to chronic disease and premature death, yet they rarely feature in road safety discussions.
This is not an argument for paying less attention to crashes. It is an argument for broadening our ambition. If transport systems are designed to protect human life, then success should be measured not only by the crashes they prevent, but also by the healthier, cleaner and more active communities they create.
The Health Burden Usually Overlooked
The problem is not that we lack evidence. It is that we continue to view these health impacts in isolation. Physical inactivity is treated as a public health issue, air pollution as an environmental issue, and traffic noise as an urban nuisance. I would argue they are all, at least in part, road safety issues because they are shaped by the same transport systems.
Take physical inactivity. When streets feel unsafe or inconvenient for walking or cycling, people naturally rely more on motorised transport, even for short trips. The result is a more sedentary lifestyle, physical inactivity, that contributes to around 3.2 million deaths each year, including 2.6 million in low- and middle-income countries, and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases [4-6].
The same streets expose people to air pollution. Road transport is a major source of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, accounting for around 15% of direct global CO₂ emissions [7]. The consequences are measured not only in emissions, but also in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year, with children among the most affected [8]. Notably 1 in 10 child asthma cases is linked to road traffic air pollution [9].
Then there is traffic noise, perhaps the most overlooked consequence of car-dependent mobility. More than 30% of the world's population is exposed to excessive road traffic noise, increasing the risk of sleep disturbance, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and poorer mental well-being [10]. In the EU, road traffic noise affects one in five people, contributing to 9,000 premature deaths and 36,000 new cases of ischaemic heart disease each year, alongside widespread annoyance and sleep disturbance [11].
We often accept this as the unavoidable cost of mobility. It isn't. It is the consequence of how we choose to design and manage our streets.
These problems may appear different, but they share the same origins: streets designed primarily for moving vehicles rather than protecting people. Once we recognise that, the conversation changes. Road safety is no longer just about preventing crashes; it becomes about designing transport systems that improve health, quality of life and environmental sustainability.
One Investment, Multiple Health Benefits
If these health burdens share common causes, they also share common solutions.
For too long, road safety, public health and climate action have been treated as separate conversations. I believe that is one of our biggest mistakes. Many of the interventions that make transport systems safer also make them healthier, cleaner and more inclusive.
Take speed management. We know that a 1% increase in average speed leads to approximately a 4% increase in fatal crashes [12]. Yet lower speeds do far more than save lives. They also reduce emissions and traffic noise. Studies from Belgium and Germany found that reducing speed limits can lower CO₂ and nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 25%, while research from Zurich showed significant reductions in road traffic noise after urban speed limits were reduced from 50 km/h to 30 km/h [13-15].
The same is true for walking, cycling and public transport. Safe infrastructure encourages people to leave their cars behind, reducing emissions while making physical activity part of everyday life [16-18].The health gains are substantial: active commuting reduces all-cause mortality by 9% and cardiovascular mortality by 15% [19]. The World Health Organization estimates in a study in Accra that investments in walking and cycling infrastructure could save 33,000 lives over 35 years and generate USD 15 billion in health benefits [20].
What strikes me is that we continue to justify these investments one benefit at a time. A cycle lane is treated as a cycling project. A lower speed limit is presented as a road safety measure. Public transport is viewed as a mobility service. In reality, each achieves all of these objectives at once.
Perhaps this is the shift road safety needs most. Instead of asking how transport policies can reduce crashes, we should ask how they can improve health. When viewed through that lens, sustainable mobility is no longer just a transport or climate objective, it becomes one of the most effective public health strategies available.
From Theory to Practice
This vision is already becoming reality. Cities around the world are showing that investments in sustainable mobility can improve safety, health and environmental quality at the same time.
Bogotá is one of the strongest examples. Investment in its CicloRutas network increased cycling while reducing bicycle-related deaths and injuries, lowering household transport costs and avoiding an estimated 36,600 tonnes of CO₂ emissions each year [21,22]. In Berlin, reallocating road space from motor vehicles to pedestrians and cyclists significantly reduced residents' exposure to harmful nighttime traffic noise [11].
These cities remind us of something important: the greatest returns come from interventions that solve several problems at once. Safer streets become cleaner streets. Lower speeds reduce both crashes and noise. Walking, cycling and public transport improve health while reducing emissions.
I believe this is where road safety must evolve. For decades, we have measured success by the crashes we prevent. That will always matter, but it is no longer enough. A transport system should also be judged by whether it encourages people to walk, breathe cleaner air, enjoy quieter neighbourhoods and move safely throughout their lives.
Looking beyond the crash does not weaken the road safety agenda; it strengthens it. It asks us to stop thinking only about surviving our journeys and start thinking about the kind of lives our transport systems make possible.
Perhaps the safest transport systems are not simply those that prevent crashes, but those that help people live longer, healthier and better lives.
References
[1] World Health Organization. (2023). Global status report on road safety 2023. https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health/global-status-report-on-road-safety-2023
[2] UN. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). https://sdgs.un.org/goals
[3] WHO. UN decade of action for road safety 2021-2030. https://www.who.int/teams/social-determinants-of-health/safety-and-mobility/decade-of-action-for-road-safety-2021-2030
[4] An, R., Shen, J., Yang, Q., & Yang, Y. (2020). Impact of built environment on physical activity and obesity among children and adolescents in China : A narrative systematic review. Journal of Sport and Health Science, 8(2), 153–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2018.11.003
[5] Wang, H., Dai, X., Wu, J., Wu, X., & Nie, X. (2025). Influence of urban green open space on residents ’ physical activity in China. 2019, 1–12.https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7416-7
[6] World Health Organization. (2019). Physical inactivity. https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/3416
[7] Hannah Ritchie. (2020) - “Cars, planes, trains: where do CO2 emissions from transport come from?” https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport
[8] Anne Gulland. (2018). Road traffic kills 350,000 children a year. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/
[9] Achakulwisut, P. et al. (2016). Global , national , and urban burdens of paediatric asthma incidence attributable to ambient NO₂ pollution : estimates from global datasets. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30046-4
[10] Chenzhi Cai, Cheuk Ming Mak, and Xuhui. (2019).Analysis of urban road traffic noise exposure of residential buildings in hong kong over the past decade. doi: 10.4103/nah.NAH_36_18.
[11] European Environment Agency. (2020). Environmental noise in Europe. https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/environmental-noise-in-europe
[12] The International Transport Forum. (2018). Speed and Crash Risk Speed and Crash Risk. https://www.itf-oecd.org/speed-crash-risk
[13] Coensel, B. De. (2011). Assessment of the impact of speed limit reduction and traffic signal coordination on vehicle emissions using an integrated approach. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2011.06.001
[14] Kunkler, J., Braun, M., & Kellner, F. (2021). Speed Limit Induced CO 2 Reduction on Motorways : Enhancing Discussion Transparency through Data Enrichment of Road Networks. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010395
[15] Brink, M., Mathieu, S., & Rüttener, S. (2022). Lowering urban speed limits to 30 km / h reduces noise annoyance and shifts exposure – response relationships : Evidence from a field study in Zurich. Environment International, 170(October), 107651. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2022.107651
[16] Victoria Transport Policy Institute (2013). Evaluating Active Transport Benefits and Costs: Guide to Valuing Walking and Cycling Improvements and Encouragement Programs. https://trid.trb.org/view/1262285
[17] International Society for Physical Activity and Health. (2020). Eight Investments That Work for Physical Activity. www.ISPAH.org/Resources
[18] Buehler, R., Kuhnimhof, T., Bauman, A., & Eisenmann, C. (2019). Active travel as stable source of physical activity for one third of German adults : Evidence from longitudinal data. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2018.09.022
[19] Dutheil, F., Pélangeon, S., Duclos, M., Vorilhon, P., & Mermillod, M. (2020). Protective Effect on Mortality of Active Commuting to Work : A Systematic Review and Meta ‑ analysis. Sports Medicine, 50(12), 2237–2250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-020-01354-0
[20] World Health Organization. (2020). Health and economic impacts of transport interventions in Accra, Ghana. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240017306
[21] World Health Organization. (2020).Cyclist safety: an information resource for decision-makers and practitioners. https://www.who.int/cyclist-safety-an-information-resource
[22] Development Asia. (2016). A Strategy for Creating a Bicycle-Friendly City https://development.asia/case-study/strategy-creating-bicycle-friendly-city
