Strategy
Road safety is an issue that impacts on all of us in our everyday lives and is a matter the Department is committed to addressing. Across the world deaths on the road remain unacceptably high. One life lost on our roads is one too many and while there has been considerable progress in reducing road deaths here, there is more that we can and must do to make our roads safer for everyone using them. The Strategy, which is founded on internationally recognised ‘Safe Systems’ principles, identifies strategic priority areas which we within government, along with other road safety stakeholders, need to focus on to deliver strategic outcomes for Safe People, Safe Roads and Safe Vehicles. These strategic outcomes give a renewed focus to making our roads safer to use for all, particularly those who are more vulnerable, including pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and horse riders, with the long-term goal of eliminating death and serious injury on roads by 2050.
The Road Safety Strategy for Northern Ireland to 2030 has been approved by the Executive and published on the 12 September 2024. The Strategy was developed following a consultation which ran from 15 November 2021 until January 10 2022. The Strategy can be found here. The Consultation Outcome report is available here.
Action Plans
In October 2022 the Minister for Infrastructure published a draft Road Safety Strategy in the absence of an Executive. In the years that followed, officials continued to co-ordinate with other Departments and key stakeholders to support the aims set out within that draft through a series of Action Plans. The Progress Reports for these Action Plans were published for 2022/23 and 2023/24 and are available here. The Action Plan for 2024/25 has now been published and sets out the current Strategic Interventions and Actions that the Department and its stakeholder partners have identified and developed, in order to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads.
Targets/ Statistics
Whilst the long-term goal is to eliminate death and serious injury on our roads by 2050 it is recognised that this may be an unachievable target, however, it is not accepted that any death or serious injury is inevitable, and this strategy strives to achieve the maximum reduction in casualties by 2030. Interim targets have been set to reduce death and serious injury by at least 50% between 2020 and 2030. These are set out within the Strategy. In addition to these targets, following public consultation, the Department has published a wide range of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which monitors the progress of the strategy against agreed targets and KPIs. The statistical reports are published by the Department’s Analysis, Statistics & Research Branch (ASRB).
To ensure the priority areas and strategic outcomes are regularly reviewed and evaluated, a three-tiered Governance Framework structure has been established. This will facilitate the ongoing review of the strategy, allow new developments and innovations to be considered on an ongoing basis and help to ensure that, throughout the lifetime of the strategy, there will be a focus on the future and on best practice to ensure that stakeholders and partners can respond to road safety challenges and embrace innovative solutions. The Governance Framework is led by the Strategic Road Safety Forum, chaired by DfI. It is supported by a Tactical Forum, focused on delivery of the action plan, and by a range of operational fora to give widespread input and support to the development of fit for purpose actions.
If you require any of these documents in an alternative format please contact safeandaccessibletravel@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk.