TRL Speed Management and Assessment Tool

22 June 2022

TRL has developed a Speed Management and Assessment Tool (SMAT) which primarily requires iRAP coding data. It has been
developed for and tested with National Highways in the UK.

Speed management is acknowledged as critical to the UN road safety Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to the Second Decade of Action for Road Safety 2030 reduction target. However, effective management of speed is difficult to achieve, practically in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC's), due to data and resource constraints.

iRAP Star Rating does not help users to systematically manage speed across networks and at specific stretches. However, speed is a vital element in the Star Rating model for calculating the infrastructure-related Star Risk. The SMAT takes the iRAP coding data and repurposes it to help stakeholders with the People and Speed pillars. The tool assists stakeholders to manage speed in robust ‘intelligence-led’ ways anywhere that iRAP Star Rating has been applied, without the need for additional major data collection.

This project intends to verify the SMAT tool’s efficacy in LMICs and provide methodologies for the evaluation and management of speed to be simply embedded into countries’ road safety operations. iRAP Star Rating has been applied to over 1.5 million kilometres of road to date, many of this in LMICs. The SMAT may be a way to assist LMICs to manage speed effectively, potentially saving many lives and serious injuries globally.