Skip to main content

Road safety experts’ 12 measures for better road safety data collection and analysis

The vital importance of better data to improve road safety has led international road safety experts from 40 countries to issue the Buenos Aires Declaration on Better Safety Data for Better Road Safety Outcomes.
January 13, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The vital importance of better data to improve road safety has led international road safety experts from 40 countries to issue the Buenos Aires Declaration on Better Safety Data for Better Road Safety Outcomes.

The Declaration recommends 12 measures for improving the collection and analysis of road safety data as a critical tool to design effective road safety policies. Among these are: the requirement for a minimum set of data for analysing road safety, which includes not only safety data but also contextual data; safety data should be aggregated at national level using a lead national agency; and the need to understand the relationship between road safety performance and economic development.

The recommendations are a result of the ongoing road safety work of ITF's International Road Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD) and the Ibero-American Road Safety Observatory (OISEVI), a co-operative body of Latin American countries for the reduction of road accidents by improvements in safety data. Better data is seen as fundamental to achieving the objectives of the UN Decade of Action on Road Safety; a halving the expected level of road deaths by 2020.
Over 1.24 million people die every year on the world’s roads, and another 20 to 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries as a result of road traffic crashes, as reported in the WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety.

Related Content

  • GHSA: Pedestrian deaths fall for second year
    July 18, 2025
    However, despite overall progress in the US, alarming trends continue for hit-and-run incidents, especially at night and in places where there are no sidewalks, according to the GHSA - Governors Highway Safety Association.
  • Shell’s John Read explains “adaptable bitumen” developments
    December 15, 2016
    Shell’s highly innovative bitumen and asphalt solutions are helping create future-ready urban road networks around the world to meet the needs of today and tomorrow. Shell’s general manager of bitumen technology, Professor John Read, takes a look at some of the company’s game-changing ideas. The next 30 or so years will see a significant transformation in the way we live. Whereas almost 75% of the world’s population lived in rural locations in 1950, around 75% will live in cities by 2050. The global popu
  • Wide variations in Europe's road safety figures
    May 14, 2012
    Road safety in Romania continues to be a major issue, with the country seeing more deaths in 2009 than in 2001. A study by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) shows that Romanian roads are eight times more dangerous than similar links in Sweden, which has Europe’s best record for road safety (see also Safety Report). Romania, along with Malta, has bucked a trend within Europe of reducing road accidents levels between 2001 and 2009 according to the report. However, while Malta’s road fatality rate
  • Drink driving challenge for Europe
    October 8, 2012
    In Europe there is a growing understanding that alcohol use amongst drivers still has to be tackled effectively. Accident data reveals that while safety standards are improving across most European countries, with steady reductions in numbers of serious injuries and fatalities, there remains a problem with alcohol use. In Spain in particular, there has been a major reduction in road casualty levels, but research into the accident data has shown that while the numbers of accidents has reduced overall, there