Global Road Designers Consultation Group

30 March 2022

Despite knowledge and free tools to improve the safety of road designs, unsafe 1- and 2-star roads are still being built every day. However, a new Global Road Designers Consultation Group is aiming to save lives by improving software and training worldwide to ensure roads are designed safe, right from the start.

Before a road design leaves the engineer’s desk, with the inclusion of a Star Rating, its safety and the number of fatalities and serious injuries the road will claim when built can be quantified. Importantly, improvements can be made early to save lives, weighing the cost and benefit of countermeasures, and impact of speed, to maximize safety.

The Star Rating for Designs (SR4D) Road Designers Consultation Group will draw together experts from around the world in the private and public sectors to provide a road designer’s perspective on the development of the SR4D programme and process, and how impact on scale can be achieved globally. Advice and feedback will be gathered on the road design process and how software is used, the effectiveness of SR4D tools and development needs, training and accreditation, and communications, to improve the worldwide offering.

Nominations are invited from designers interested in joining the Consultation Group by 8 April.

Star Rating for Designs (SR4D) is an evidence-based process and programme of applications informed by the iRAP Methodology which enable the objective measure, and improvement, of the level of road safety ‘built in’ to a road design for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, pedestrians and bicyclists, before the commencement of civil works.