Important Role of Regional Observatories

In many countries around the world, deficiencies in data or data quality impair evidence-based road safety policy making. While many countries collect road safety data, the collection is not necessarily comprehensive. Further, many countries can be unaware of data gaps in their system, which prevents them from soundly analyzing their road safety problems. Therefore, road safety data definitions and collection methods must converge into standard international criteria, thus allowing for comparisons in space – across countries – and in time.

This is the raison d’etre of regional road safety observatories, which have been developed, for example, in Latin America (OISEVI), Africa (ARSO), and Asia-Pacific (APRSO) . They present an opportunity for joint regional efforts to improve, in a harmonized way, road safety data collection and analysis. Regional road safety observatories promote the adoption of a common set of road safety indicators based on common definitions and serve as an avenue to assist countries in improving the management of their crash data systems.

Guidelines for Conducting Road Safety Data Reviews published by GRSF is designed to support reviewers in the assessment of road safety data collection; the complete range of safety data should be considered. 

A  to support reviewers in the assessment of road safety data collection; the complete range of safety data should be considered