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Ministry of Road Transport and Highways | National Road Safety Board | NITI Aayog
ADB Institute policy brief, Navigating Road Safety in Developing Asia: A People-Centric Intervention advocates for a paradigm shift from vehicle-centric engineering to a Safe System approach that prioritizes human protection. It mentions that road crashes have emerged as a silent epidemic in Asia, accounting for over 60% of global fatalities. While explosive motorization has outpaced regulatory frameworks, current practices often overlook soft infrastructure, leaving pedestrians and cyclists—who constitute 65% of fatality victims—facing disproportionate risks.
Key Systemic Gaps and Strategic Priorities The brief identifies critical institutional and design shortcomings across the region that require urgent attention:
Vulnerability Mapping: Road traffic injuries are significantly higher for school-aged children and productive-age females. Sidewalks are currently absent on 78% of roads, necessitating a radical reallocation of space to non-motorized transport.
Safe System Implementation: Effective management requires the integration of safer road users, infrastructure, and vehicles, yet this remains underutilized in emerging Asia due to fragmented agency oversight.
Harnessing Peer Influence: Peer dynamics can complement traditional enforcement by creating natural feedback loops that discourage risky driving behavior, especially in cultures where group travel and social cohesion are strong.
Data-Driven Foundations: Most countries rely on police reports that suffer from significant underreporting; a roadmap is proposed to transition toward integrated systems that use citizen reporting and Road Safety Observatories.
What is the “Safe System approach” in the context of people-centric road safety? The Safe System approach is a holistic road safety framework that recognizes human error is inevitable and seeks to ensure that crash impacts do not exceed the limits of human tolerance. It distributes safety responsibility across four key pillars: safer road users, safer road infrastructure, safer road management, and safer vehicles. By shifting the focus from individual compliance to collective ownership, this approach designs the environment to protect the most vulnerable road users—children, women, and the elderly—ensuring that the transport system itself acts as a safeguard against fatal outcomes.
Policy Relevance
The brief provides a blueprint for strengthening India’s urban mobility and public health governance. India faces one of the highest road fatality rates globally; adopting these interventions can preserve human capital and advance national goals like poverty reduction and inclusive mobility.
Infrastructure Modernization: Aligning with India’s Smart Cities Mission, municipal governments in cities like Chennai and Pune are already shifting from car-centric to people-centric street designs to create safer spaces for pedestrians.
Institutional Coordination: Establishing cross-ministerial task forces would dismantle the silos between transport, health, and law enforcement agencies, mirroring the mandate of the National Road Safety Board.
Data Ecosystem Integration: Leveraging India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to create a national Road Safety Observatory can unify fragmented data from police and health services, enabling targeted “heat maps” for infrastructure investment.
Inclusive Mobility: Integrating gender-sensitive design into transit operations, such as better lighting and enforcement against gender-based violence, is inseparable from the broader agenda of women’s economic participation.
Follow the full report here: Navigating Road Safety in Developing Asia | ADBI