REPORTPROMOTING SAFE AND
SUSTAINABLE CITIES WITH
PUBLIC TRANSPORTFOR THE SDGSFEBRUARY | 2020

© XXXFOREWORD

While dozens of cities have taken the Vision Zeropledge to end traffic-related fatalities and serious
injuries, many are struggling to make progress.
Evidence from London, Mexico City and othercities reveals that a sustainable transport system
helps to save lives. The Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) recognise this through SDG 11.2
which encourages cities to improve road safety,
notably through expanding public transport.
Transport and mobility can only be sustainable if
it is safe. As urban areas flourish and become more
populated around the world, road safety must bea critical element for consideration when planningfor sustainability. Safety is a key component of
the transport related SDGs and this report, raises
awareness of how a sustainable urban transportsystem not only saves lives but also makes our cities
better places to live.
Mohamed Mezghani, Secretary General, UITP& Gino Van Begin, Secretary General, ICLEI

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Shifting trips to public transport“createssafer, healthier and more vibrantcommunities. It is fundamental to a city’s
Vision Zero success and the urban SDG’s.
This report outlines recommendations both
locally and globally to scale up efforts forthe next Decade of Action for safer, moresustainable cities.

”ROAD SAFETY AND THE SDGs
Road traffic injuries are the tenth leading cause of deathglobally, responsible for around 1.3 million deaths eachyear with 90% of these casualties happening in developing countries. Around 50 million are also injured on theworld’s roads annually, overall costing governments up to3% of their GDP1. Cities will be at the forefront of thenext Decade of Action on road safety because by 2030,
it is expected that nearly 5 billion (60%) of the world’s
8.5 billion people will live in urban environments, notably
in developing regions.

MEXICO CITY’S BOLD COMMITMENT
TO VISION ZERO
The world’s fifth largest metropolitan area is
helping more people move about safely, while also
demonstrating that Vision Zero is a viable solution
for communities well beyond its birthplace ofEurope. The City committed to Vision Zeroin 2015, and in its first two years successfully
reduced traffic deaths by a notable 18%, including
24% fewer deaths among people walking and 77%
fewer among people biking. With the passage of a
new mobility law in 2015, the Ministry of Transportand Roads became the Ministry of Mobility which
established a hierarchy, which prioritizes the mostvulnerable road users. Now, walking, biking, andpublic transport are the main focus for mobility
strategies. Data was used to prioritize problematic
issues and locations and strong political will has
brought long overdue attention to safe mobility.

Recognising the obstacle that road traffic injuries present
to development efforts, Member States included a specific SDG target on road safety (SDG 3.6) in the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development – which calls for a50% reduction in road traffic deaths by 2020. The number of road traffic deaths continues to rise steadily andthe rate of death relative to the size of the world’s population has remained constant, meaning that we are way
off when it comes to delivering SDG 3.6. If action is nottaken now, by 2030 it will be the fifth-largest cause ofdeath worldwide.
The SDGs also identifies solutions to the road safety
challenge in urban areas (SDG 11). SDG 11.2 recognises
the importance of having access to a safe and sustainable urban transport system for all, making specific reference to “improving road safety, notably by expanding publictransport”.

* Source: Visionzeronetwork
1 WHO, “Global Status Report on Road Safety”, 2018.

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ACHIEVING THE SDG
TARGET THROUGH VISION ZEROLONDON’S, UK, VISION ZEROACTION PLAN

The Safe System approach is today at the centre stageof road safety policy making at the global, regional andnational levels but increasingly so at the local level. Moreand more cities are adopting Vision Zero strategies andit’s ‘Safe Systems Approach’ 2. It can be viewed as aparadigm shift, where the ultimate responsibility for roadsafety is shifted from the individual road user to those
who are responsible for various functions of the transportsystem. Much effort is being put into designing thetransport system so that crashes will not lead to serious
consequences. The focus is on the roads, the vehicles
and the stakeholders who use the road transport system,
rather than on the behaviour of the individual road user.
Given the public transport authorities and operators arevital functions of the transport system, they can play anessential role the next Decade of Action.

The Mayor’s Transport Strategy sets out the goal
that, by 2041, all deaths and serious injuries will
be eliminated from London›s transport network.
While work continues to make the wider transport
network even safer, the Vision Zero Action
Plan focuses on the areas where our greatest
challenges lie. The Action Plan prioritises public
transport, walking and cycling use and focuses onfive key areas for action: Safe speeds; Safe streets;Safe vehicles, including introducing a worldleading Bus Safety Standard across London’s
entire bus fleet; Safe behaviours and Postcollision response, which consists of developing
systematic information sharing and learning, alongwith improving justice and care for the victims oftraffic incidents.

© shutterstock

In the context of the SDGs, the UN Decade of Action(2010-2020) and the UN Urban Agenda 3, Member
States embraced Safe System principles. The three
agendas encourage the promotion and use of public
transport to help tackle the road safety problem. The roleof public transport is currently overlooked in most roadsafety planning and sometimes forgotten by Vision Zero
strategies 4 but cities with higher public transport use
can cut their traffic fatality rate by half 5 (table 1). Thislarge decrease is associated with the fact that increases
in public transport use and compact development reduce
the reliance of private transport use. This offers significant
opportunities to scale up efforts on road safety mainly
because public transport use is underutilised or notsupported enough in many cities.

* Source: TfL

Table 1 - In places where public transport ridership is high, traffic fatalities are low
The link between traffic fatality rates and public transport ridership is especially strong in larger cities 6Traffic Fatalities per 100,000 population

25Northen Europe
Southern EuropeUSCanadaAustralia

20
1510500
1,000
Annual per Capita Transit Passenger-Miles

2,000

3,000

4,000

2 COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EU Road Safety Policy Framework 2021-2030 - Next steps towards “Vision Zero” (June 2019)
R2 = 0.3467
3 # 113: http://habitat3.org/wp-content/uploads/NUA-English.pdf
4 https://movingbeyondzero.com/the-safe-systems-approach/
5 https://www.apta.com/news-publications/press-releases/releases/cities-with-higher-public-transit-use-can-cut-their-road-traffic-death-rate-in-half/
6 Graph: Kenworthy & Laube, 2000

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THE TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGE
Increased public transport,
walking and cycling

Safer, healthierenvironment for all

Technology advances in connectivity and automation will
create new opportunities for advanced efforts on roadsafety - they can potentially reduce the total number ofroad injuries and fatalities by around 40%8. ITS solutions
can also allow for public transport to embrace and benefitfrom new mobility solutions such as bike shared schemes,
shared mobility services and automation but this might
have a profound effect on urban mobility and urban roadsafety if done right. As mobility continues to grow and isradically transformed by digitisation, decarbonisation andinnovation, the opportunities to further improve safety
performance must be seized with the public transport
sector taking the lead as the backbone of a sustainable,
safe transport system in our cities.

Reducedvehicle travel

Reduced emissions, air
pollution & fewer crashes
and fatalities

A SAFE SYSTEM IS SUSTAINABLE
AND CLEANEDMONTON’S, CANADA, JOURNEY
TO ADOPTING A SAFE SYSTEM

Activities taken as part of the new Decade of Action
will also have an impact on steps taken towards othersustainability challenges. Synergies between safety
and sustainability measures should be seized and thisis where SDG 11.2 can play an important role: forexample, less car use in cities thanks to public transport
combined with safer environments for pedestrians andcyclists will reduce CO2 emissions, improve air quality,reduce congestion – and help develop a more activeand healthy population. For example, Delhi Metro(India) carries 2.8 million passengers a day, replacing
400,000 vehicles on the road, saving 300,000
tonnes of oil import per year and preventing 70 tonnesof pollutants every day. Commuters save 32 minutesof their journey and about 135 road fatalities are
avoided per annum.

Driven by a Mayor’s Task Force on Traffic Safety,
the City of Edmonton established the firstmunicipal Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) in North
America to address its rate of fatal and injury
collisions, the then highest of any major Canadiancity. OTS works closely with traffic safety
stakeholders in a collaborative, integrated process
to reduce vehicle collisions. This approach resulted
in a 60% reduction in injury collisions or killed overthe period 2006 to 2018. The OTS utilises anevidence-based approach which identifies leading
practices in traffic safety, supports research andevaluation, and drives continuous improvement
through performance metrics. This progressive,
systemic way forward identified by their Vision
Zero and the Safe Systems Approach are central
to Edmonton’s Road Safety Strategy, which aims
for a mode shift to public transport.

In Ahmedabad, India, the city’s new BRT has helped
reduce fatalities on the corridor by nearly 66% while
also providing a safer form of transport compared toprivate vehicles and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
by 35%7.

© shutterstock

Other measures can also play an important role, forinstance in London, UK, congestion charge has helped
to reduce CO2 emissions in the city centre by 16% andseen a 31% drop in traffic crashes. In Buenos Aires,Argentina, by making streets safe for pedestrians andcyclists and limiting the number of cars in the roads andpromoting public transport, it reduced local emissions
by up to 99%, improving safety for 400,000 people
and increasing citizens’ health through more activetravel.

* Source: OECD ITF & City of Edmonton
7 https://www.wri.org/publication/sustainable-and-safe-vision-and-guidance-zero-road-deaths
8 https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/03srnewtech.pdf

5SCALING UP ROAD SAFETY IN OUR CITIESENABLING THE LOCAL LEVEL

More cities need to work towards Safe System policies,
practices and Vision Zero strategies covering all relevant
stakeholders. Public officials and local planners candesign safer and more sustainable urban mobility byadopting a range of proven principles that can help cities
to significantly reduce road deaths and injuries9:

National governments need to ensure that the local levelis engaged on road safety and foster an urgency to drivechange. Cities need to be supported and empowered
to tackle the road safety challenge and the following
recommendations are addressed to national governments
so that they can help finance and facilitate local levelaction that will help to “improve road safety, notably
expanding public transport: 10Create
dedicated
space forpedestrians

Slow downroad traffic

Provide a safe
and connected
network for
cyclists

Integrate road safety into
sustainable urban mobility
plans based on a backbone of
public transport

Ensure mainstreets are safefor everyone

International action

Avoid urban
sprawlEnsure safe
access to public
transport,scale upinfrastructure
and use andintegrate withnew mobility
solutionsUse data to detectproblem areas, risks
and performance

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, IS NOWA VISION ZERO REGION
Under the Tāmaki-Makaurau Road Safety Governance Group’s new safety strategy, released in
September 2019, there’s a goal of no deaths orserious injuries on the transport network by 2050.
The success of this goal will be built on strong
partnerships created under the Group, made up of
Auckland Transport, Police, NZ Transport Agency,
Ministry of Transport, Auckland Council, Auckland Regional Public Health Service and Accident
Compensation Corporation.

Local action

Under a safe system, it will apply to all modes oftransport – bus, train, ferry, walking, cycling, motorcycling, driving and micro-mobility. The aim isthat public transport, walking and cycling become
the preferred choice and key priority actions include creating safe and healthy streets throughsafe active modes including access to public
transport, schools and town centres and safe endto-end public transport journeys.
* Source: Auckland Transport

Promoteinternational
cooperation
and buildcapacity throughinternationalorganisations suchas the UITP and
the ICLEI which
can promotesolutions that cansignificantly advancethe next Decadeof Action on roadsafety

Develop andencourage cities
to apply safe
systems guidelines
which are renewed
regularly based onlatest research andinnovation which
encourages morecompact safer cities
based on more
public transport,
walking and cycling

Establish nationalroad safety
strategies basedon safe systemapproach andensure local levelparticipation

Development ofstrong metropolitantransport
authorities thatcan enhance theintegration between
transport and landuse planning

Understand the
optimal legislativeand regulatory
frameworks tosupport the local
level so that they
can be empowered
to tackle local levelroad safety issues

Local government
funding andappropriate
resource allocationto scale up
solutions to roadsafety, notably
by expanding
public transport astargeted by SDG
11.2

9 Based on the EU City Declaration “The New Paradigm for Safe City Streets” & guidance from: Sustainable and Safe: A vision and guidance for zero road deaths (WRI, 2018)
10 These are based on the recommendations outlined in the Australian Government’s Review of National Road Safety Governance Arrangements - Final Report (June 2019)

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HARYANA, INDIA’S FIRST VISIONZERO STATE
With over 140,000 road traffic deaths annually, a majority of the victims are in the age groupof 15 to 45 years, which not only puts a serious
burden on their families, but also has a significant
impact on the GDP of the country. As India
continues to urbanise, it is clear that we need acomprehensive approach towards improving thesafety of our roads.

© shutterstockOver the last few years, the Indian government
has made a number of attempts to strengthen
road legislation. Haryana is the first state to officially adopt Vision Zero in May 2017. The program
initially covered 10 districts but later expanded toall 21 districts of state after witnessing the positive impacts. Haryana’s road safety action planalso aims to address existing challenges related
to increased public transport and the importanceof good infrastructure, and highlighted the needto have walkable footpaths and segregated cycle
tracks on all roads in the city.

THE WAY FORWARD
We need to establish a new UN road safety target for2030 to halve road deaths and serious injuries, buildingon SDG 11.2. This will reinvigorate the road safety
ambition of the SDGs and provide a framework foraccountability and action based on a Safe System/VisionZero approach.
We need to mobilise new resources to finance road injury
prevention programmes, especially in our cities. Public
transport investments in infrastructures and services
provides a new opportunity to ensure that road safetyattracts the funding it so clearly deserves.
We need much stronger political commitment at all levels
to road safety. We know that the countries and cities withthe best road safety performance have benefitted fromstrong and sustained political support and investment insustainable transport as targeted by SDG 11.2 which canset a new path of road safety progress for 2030.
© shutterstock

We therefore need to expand public transport and tointegrate road safety and sustainable transport into
existing and new financing mechanisms and planning
intended to support delivery of international agendas.

7International Association of Public Transport (UITP)Rue Sainte-Marie, 6 | B-1080 Brussels | Belgium
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