Pedestrian safety - Global Road Safety Partnership

Prioritizing pedestrian safety interventions and preparing a plan of action
3.2 How to assess the pedestrian safety situation
The pedestrian safety situational assessment should cover a range of topics related
to the magnitude of the problem, risk factors and existing policies and programmes
(see also Modules 1 and 2). The assessment must take care to identify issues that
are hidden or require deeper analysis, as well as those that are obvious or easy to
discover (1). This section provides information on how to conduct a situational
assessment by suggesting methods for specific aspects to be assessed.
A situational assessment of pedestrian safety entails the following activities:
• describing the magnitude, trends and patterns of pedestrian fatalities and injuries;
• analysing risk and protective factors for pedestrian injuries and fatalities;
• examining the times and places where pedestrian injuries and fatalities occur;
• describing the modes of transport involved in conflicts with pedestrians;
• identifying and assessing existing pedestrian safety programmes and institutions to
identify gaps and areas to improve as well as those to maintain; and
• identifying contextual factors related to politics, environment, economics and
capacity that may facilitate or hinder the implementation of pedestrian safety
measures.
Key contributions to the situational assessment will come from various existing
data sources, including from agencies responsible for roads and transportation,
law enforcement, urban and regional planning, public health, finance, as well as
from road safety nongovernmental organizations. Additional data in the form
of observational studies, surveys and/or road safety audits may be required to
supplement existing data sources.
3.2.1 Assessing the magnitude, trends and patterns of pedestrian
fatalities and injuries
Accurate data on the extent of the pedestrian safety problem are essential to define
the problem and develop appropriate measures. The types of data needed for the
assessment can be grouped into minimum and complementary data (see Table 3.1).
The minimum data set includes information on the what, where, when and why
dimensions of pedestrian injuries (2). In addition, it is important to have background
information on population, transport and socioeconomic indicators of the
setting under investigation. These additional data provide information needed for
computing indicators for comparison.
Police departments and health facilities provide most of the data used in pedestrian
injury analysis and prevention. There may be other data sources such as vital
registration records, insurance companies, nongovernmental organizations, academic
institutions, scientific studies, hospital-based injury surveillance systems or the
ministry of health, each with its own type of data and quality issues. The situational
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