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Add to Preferred SourcesThailand is one of the countries under the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety aiming to reduce fatalities and serious injuries from road traffic crashes.
Thailand has one of the highest road traffic death rates in the world, with motorcyclists accounting for most of these deaths. Bangkok, Thailand’s capital and largest city, has a population of 5.7 million and its number of registered vehicles in the city continues to grow at a rapid rate, including motorcycles, which make up 36% of all vehicles.
In response to this, the World Bank and nine other partners joined the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety, a $125 million partnership program focused on reducing road deaths and serious injuries in ten selected cities in the developing world.
In addition to Bangkok, Thailand, the other cities include Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Bandung, Indonesia, Bogota, Colombia; Fortaleza, Brazil; Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam; Mumbai, India; Sao Paolo, Brazil; and Shanghai, China.
More recently, an iRAP Centre of Excellence partnership agreement was signed in November last year with Chulalongkorn University to establish a Thai Road Assessment Program (ThaiRAP).
“The World Bank’s role is to encourage countries to improve their performance threshold. In this regard, having a program like ThaiRAP is important for country ownership as they can set what the target policy would be for every road that is being rehabilitated or newly constructed,” said Alina F. Burlacu, World Bank Transport Specialist. “We hope to see Chulalongkorn University working directly with the government stakeholders so that these targets are mainstreamed at the country level. With low-cost road safety engineering measures, so many lives can be saved in Thailand.”
Under the program, cities receive funding support for three full-time staff to work within city governments like the Traffic and Transportation Department of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) on their road safety initiatives.
Original source: World Bank
Published on 26 March 2019