The world's best performing countries in road safety have seen a steady decline in road traffic related death and injury, generally beginning in the early 1970s, and now recording fatality rates around 20 to 30 deaths annually per million population (ITF, 2022). In contrast, at a global level, fatalities and injuries continue to climb despite these best-in-class successes evidencing that road traffic injury is a solvable problem.

The World Health Organization reports that over 1.3 million people are killed annually in road use and that in some countries, the rate exceeds 300 deaths per million population (WHO, 2023). The economic costs of such losses have been estimated at up to 7% of Gross Domestic Product (Elvik, 2000; Jacobs et al., 2000; OECD, 2006; Wijnen & Stipdonk, 2016; iRAP, 2021)

Research has confirmed that there is a correlation between the maturity of road safety initiatives and road safety collisions (Amador & Willis, 2014). Road safety in countries with a high level of Safe System implementation, such as Norway (Elvik & Nævestad, 2023), Sweden (Belin et al., 2012; Johansson, 2009), or the Netherlands (Wegman et al., 2006; Weijermars & Wegman, 2011), show how this approach helps to improve road safety effectively. This was shown in many research papers, with examples found in Wegman et al. (2015), Edvardsson Björnberg et al. (2020) and Bliss and Breen (2013). Put another way, the occurrence of death and injury in road use reflects the levels of knowledge, skills, experience, and will that are present within the management and operation of the road system. As a result, measuring and understanding an organisation's ability to manage and operate a safe road system is of great interest. This interest has led to a large body of work to codify the road safety management discipline and transfer good practice to improve performance at a country, region, city, organizational and project level. One notable example is the road safety capacity models developed by the World Bank, commonly used for national road safety capacity reviews (Bliss & Breen, 2013). More recently, attention has moved to codifying the level of maturity evident in road safety management systems (Espiga, 2019) following earlier developments in occupational health and safety management (Filho & Waterson, 2018; Fleming, 2001).

This paper reports progress in the development of road safety maturity frameworks and presents three such frameworks designed for use at a project, organizational or country level. These frameworks can be used by project leaders, road authorities, government representatives, companies, NGOs, and other actors to decide to what extent the road safety problems they face, and the plans they envisage to improve the situation, match the current scientific knowledge about effective interventions. The use of these frameworks helps to prevent implementation of less effective interventions. These frameworks consist of concentrated descriptions of best practices, allowing for adjustment to specific local situations for new road safety challenges. The purpose of bringing these frameworks together in this communication is to make the road safety community aware of their existence, and to encourage their use. Through practical application, these frameworks can then be further refined, ensuring that they act as meaningful tools in the future implementation of Safe System actions.

The main dimensions of each model are presented together with commentary on the theoretical and practical links between the frameworks. Ongoing research in the area is discussed.

It is important to differentiate between being able to identify the characteristics of a given developmental stage and being able to recommend with confidence what is needed to move from one stage to the next. A common intention across the developers of all three frameworks presented here was the desire to contribute usefully to the progression in maturity of road safety management systems which exist in the delivering of sustained measures. The term ‘road safety management system’ is used here to refer to the combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes employed by individuals and organizations together with the enabling environment—the structures of power and influence and the institutions—in which they are embedded (OECD, 2006). From this common starting point grew three different approaches to understanding and measuring road safety capacity maturity. Each approach is presented below as work in progress and describes a current best practice to improving road safety based on scientific research and successful implemented policies.

Whilst these frameworks themselves are not science based, their content is. The interventions and governance structures proposed in all three frameworks are based on evidence from successful Safe System implementation in multiple territories since the 1990s (Academic Expert Group, 2019; Breen et al., 2018; ITF, 2016; Turner et al., 2021; WHO, 2017; WHO, 2021; Wallbank et al., 2021; Weijermars & Wegman, 2011; Welle et al., 2018). The Agilysis framework further draws on maturity assessment models from other safety domains (Breen et al., 2018; Cooper, 2000; Hudson et al., 2000; Westrum, 1993), as well as an evidence-based behaviour change model (Darnton & Horne, 2013). Furthermore, the creators of these frameworks have extensive knowledge and experience of applying Safe System thinking in multiple territories, including understanding the challenges and opportunities for those trying to eliminate road risk. These frameworks, therefore, are based on a high-level of expertise, used to provide supportive tools for practitioners and policymakers.

The International Transport Forum (ITF) recognizes that implementing a Safe System approach is the most effective and efficient way to improve road safety (ITF, 2008). However, introducing a Safe System is not easy, especially in low- and middle-income countries. To guide those seeking to implement the Safe System approach, a theoretical framework has been developed (ITF, 2022).

Agilysis created the Safe System Cultural Maturity Model (SSCMM) and accompanying diagnostic tool (Campsall et al., 2022; Fosdick et al., 2024) to assist those organizations managing and delivering road safety activities to adopt and deliver Safe System actions. The framework combines Safe System guidance with principles of safety culture from other sectors, such as occupational health, coal and mining, aviation and maritime navigation, and nuclear regulation (Figure 2). To adopt a Safe System approach, an organization cannot just state its ambition; it needs a culture that supports individuals to develop deep-seated motivation arising from belief in the approach and the organization to develop actions that are consistent with its values.

Developed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Road Safety Maturity Framework (Small et al., 2023) recognizes the importance of improving road safety as a key response to achieving the targets set out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. While originally developed for use among countries of Asia and the Pacific, the framework is not geographically limited. Designing effective investments in road safety at a country level is aided by an understanding of the country's maturity in road safety, the priority areas for improvement, and the state of readiness to take action. ADB's framework, Assessing the Maturity of National Road Safety Management Systems, sets out a methodology for country level assessment and comparative analysis.

The framework was developed in consultation with the partner countries which form the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) program. Assessments conducted in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, as part of the SASEC program, helped test and validate the framework and the methodology followed. The Asian Development Bank is in the process of promoting the use of the model for other developing member countries, including through the Asia Pacific Road Safety Observatory.

This paper illustrates the manyfold and intensified cooperative international efforts to provide practical guidelines for countries to improve road safety performance. The three maturity frameworks presented cover different organisational structures (see Table 1). While the ITF framework covers six road safety pillars with only one dimension directed at management, the ABD approach is more heavily weighted to road safety management. In contrast, the Agilysis framework addresses quite another dimension: the safety culture, needed to increase the willingness to change. The ADB approach is especially relevant and powerful for those acting on a national level, aiming for a systematic improvement of the Safe System approach. The ABD tool allows for a large variety in stages of development; hence many countries can apply their methods. The ITF method is mainly developed with a focus on (low and middle income) countries, but might also be used by regions, cities, organisations, and projects. The Agilysis framework has a main focus on organizations, providing them with a method and material for introspection to find out how they can improve towards a safe road traffic system.

Currently, ITF and partners are developing a practical tool for those who want to improve the Safe System content of their road safety improvement approach (ITF, n/d). This is done in cooperation with many, such as the ADB, Agilysis and many others. This cooperation revealed that similar approaches can greatly enhance each other. Agilysis have tested their tool with road safety partnerships and two national road authorities in the UK and are looking to extend testing to determine the universality of approach and refine as necessary. ADB have applied their framework across countries in South Asia and will soon assess Central Asian countries with a view to its application across Asia and the Pacific.

The maturity concept could help with strengthening the interventions delivered by these jurisdictions and organizations while developing a common set of notions, assisting them in developing sustained road safety policy. One of the goals is that these available practical guidelines align and strengthen each other, refer to one another, helping practitioners all over the world to use these guidelines to their best ability and to contribute to designing efficient road safety policies and facilitate their implementation.

Although the three maturity frameworks differ in the target audience and the scope as illustrated in Table 4, they are alike in the sense that each strive to invite road safety professionals to apply the frameworks in practice, and share the results with the authors or each other, to allow for further improvements and an even better match between theory and practice.

While on the one hand, theories on how to design the Safe System continue to develop, putting these theories into practice in any Safe System implementation is another matter. Implementing the Safe System is first and foremost a matter of cooperation between professionals, adapting the theory to the practical limitations. The process of cooperating with each other and learning from each other has shown us that there is still room for improvement in aligning methods to provide support in Safe System implementation and, especially, the choice of terminology of such methods (e.g. defining maturity).

These three frameworks aim to help countries, regions, cities, or organizations to learn from those more advanced in Safe System implementation, such as the Netherlands and Sweden, who started on this journey decades ago. ITF reports (ITF, 2008; ITF, 2016; ITF, 2022) show an increasing tendency to bring together practical experiences and options for policy action on the one hand, and common principles of the Safe System approach on the other hand. When most effective, this maturation occurs simultaneously across Management, Organisational Culture, and Policy and Practice. The frameworks are presented in this communication to promote their existence and to encourage their use amongst the global road safety community. The authors of this paper invite readers to assess the future application of these frameworks in order to validate and further improve them.

The three frameworks presented all provide pointers to those seeking to mature as to how they can do so, exploring the same problem from different perspectives. The ADB Framework emphasizes the role of management in committing to Safe System implementation, whilst the Agilysis Framework explores how the prevalent organisational safety culture can influence the likelihood to adopt the required roles, actions, and policies to enact Safe System thinking. The ITF approach is practical in nature and can assist with Safe System implementation by all actors across the system. Through comparing and analysing these frameworks, it has become clear that there are multiple and complementary routes to Safe System maturity. Collectively, these tools can provide a holistic view of a jurisdiction's or organization's maturity and therefore, can (and perhaps should) be used in combination.

The authors report no competing interests.

The contribution of SWOV to the development of the ITF Safe System model was based on the funding of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management for the research and knowledge dissemination programme of SWOV. The contribution of VTI to the development of the ITF Safe System model was funded by VTI.

The Agilysis' model was developed using funding from National Highways in England. The research methodology and results were not directed by the funding organisation.

The Asian Development Bank model was funded by the Asian Development Bank.