New Guide - Integrating Safety into Road Design

28 July 2022

Safe road infrastructure can reduce deaths and serious injury of up to 80 percent.

The World Bank Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) has developed this new guide in response to the ever-growing need for safe road and roadside design to save lives from road crashes. A substantial reduction in road deaths will only be feasible if concerted efforts are made, following the “Safe System” approach involving all elements of road safety, management, and delivery. This includes all pillars of the Safe System—starting from road safety management, safe roads and roadsides, safe speed, safe vehicles, safe road users, and post-crash care.

This guide focuses on elements of safe road and roadside designs for road networks that can provide safe mobility to all road users, as well as complementary changes to improve speeds, vehicle safety, road user behaviors, and post-crash care.

A balanced road design must take into account these complementary system elements to maximize safety benefits. The energy carried by a moving object is proportional to the square of its speed. A well-designed “forgiving roadside” ensures that this energy is dispersed in a crash, and as a result, less energy is transferred to the occupants. This report will be helpful for practitioners and researchers, especially in Low- and Middle-Income countries, to identify safety-related issues in road design and provide guidance to embed good practices.

Download the guide here.