There has been a considerable shift in recent years which recognises the shortfalls of traditional car- centric road designs in urban areas. Some major cities across the world have fundamentally changed their approach to designing and managing their urban road networks, which now prioritise safety and mobility for pedestrians and cyclists.

Changes to road user groups themselves, such as increased cycling and micro-mobility, are also prompting cities to look for ways to provide safer urban road environments for all road users.

The International Road Assessment Program (iRAP) is a small organisation with a big vision - a world free of high risk roads. iRAP's safety Star Ratings, which are used around the globe, help road authorities and others identify and address high risk roads for all road users including bicyclists. In recent years, we have been expanding our tool suite to focus on sustainable transport safety.

This session will focus on three recent initiatives to support bicycling safety: (i) Improvement of our Safer Road Investment Plans to embed best practice design for bicyclist and pedestrian safety in urban environments; (ii) Harnessing big data and machine learning inform safer road design, particularly for bicyclists and pedestrians for whom data is severely lacking; and (iii) Our newest tool, CycleRAP, which is an enhanced risk model specific to bicyclists and light mobility users.

Monica Olyslagers, Global Innovation Manager and Cities Specialist, iRAP

Monica Olyslagers leads iRAP’s research and innovation agenda and project delivery for the gathering of intelligence and developing tools for improving road safety.

She is currently leading projects to utilize AI and big data to improve road safety globally (‘AiRAP’), and a cycling and micro-mobility risk assessment tool (‘CycleRAP’) to help cities deliver safer networks for non-motorized transport.