Greater London Authority

 
Transport for London (TfL), the functional body that delivers the Mayor's Transport strategy with the London boroughs and other stakeholders, takes the leading role within London in encouraging and facilitating activities to achieve London's road safety targets. Such activities will include:
 
1) Smarter Travel: TfL has reorganised to give a greater focus on modes of travel that are less capable of causing road traffic collisions, particularly severe injuries, such as walking and cycling. This is a growing area and includes pilot schemes in selected London boroughs, from which successful measures will be encouraged or more widely promoted.
 
2) Better street spaces action plan (self-explaining roads): TfL is working to develop a new action plan to create and maintain a less visually cluttered streetscape, cleared of excessive guardrails and signs, in keeping with greater use of 'better street spaces' principles. This approach aims to improve driver awareness of pedestrians and other vulnerable groups by simplifying the streetscape and promoting careful or active forms of driving.   These measures are linked to improvements in urban design to make London's streets safer while becoming more attractive, particularly to pedestrians. This contributes to a walking-friendly city, reducing road casualties through mode shift.
 
3) School travel planning: 90 per cent of London's schools now have an active travel plan in place that supports more active, sustainable travel, together with providing safer, more accessible routes to school.
 
4) Safety publicity, training and educational campaigns: TfL provides funding and advice to the London boroughs and other stakeholders to support BikeSafe London which provides assessment rides for motorcyclists; The Children's Traffic Club, which provides road safety materials for all 3 year olds in London; a teenager campaign; and initiatives targeted at cyclists, LGV (Large Goods Vehicles) drivers and motorcyclists.
 
5) Speed and red light awareness workshops: Designed to encourage offending drivers to understand the dangers and impact of speeding and running red lights.
 
6) Local safety and road engineering: Schemes are developed by TfL for the main roads (managed by TfL), and by the local boroughs for their roads.
 
7) Speed reduced roads (e.g. 20 mph zones): There are over 400 20mph zones operational in London. Research shows that these zones have reduced KSIs (killed and seriously injured) by over 45 per cent. TfL provides funding and advice to the London boroughs when developing such schemes.
 
8) Using new technology: Transport for London is working with partners to support the voluntary take-up of Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) technology, the use of safety cameras and vehicle-activated signs where appropriate, as a means of encouraging drivers to be more aware of, and therefore keep to, the speed limit at all times. 
 
9) Having mapped the speed limits on all roads within the M25 (motorway that encircles Greater London), TfL maintains and updates this information to support development of two kinds of ISA for London which drivers are being encouraged to use. They are:
 
- Advisory ISA, simply displaying the speed limit of a particular road; and
- Voluntary ISA, which is similar to Advisory ISA but allows the driver to activate a speed management function to prevent speeding.
 
The recent introduction of an ISA programme in London makes us a leader in the application of this technology.
 
10) Vulnerable road users: Transport for London manages a number of programmes that focus on the most vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and users of powered two wheelers. 
 
This includes a strong focus on the current pedal cycle revolution taking place in London. The existing 92 per cent increase in cycling (from 2002 to 2008) will shortly be boosted by the introduction of London's cycle hire scheme and network of cycle superhighways. The challenge is to maintain a reduction in cycling casualties per person km travelled and in absolute numbers against the target baseline years, whilst further reducing the absolute number of casualties to promote the cycling revolution.
 
 
11) Research and analysis: TfL produces quarterly updates on the casualty figures, as well as annual reports which include information for each London borough. Fact sheets on specific road user groups are produced periodically, along with results from research projects which are aimed at improving our understanding of the safety problem in London.
 
12) Specialist staff and associated services are employed to develop, promote, implement and monitor these and other actions throughout London. These staff and resources are provided by the 'London Road Safety Unit'', which is an integral part of Transport for London. Further information is available at the following links:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/2289.aspx www.londonroadsafety.com