NTRC hosts seminar on road safety

Islamabad:The National Transport Research Centre (NTRC), Pakistan’s premier road safety agency, hosted a one-day seminar on the ‘5th Global Status Report on Road Safety’ here on Thursday, says a press release.

This is the first report in the second decade of action 2021-30 and the 5th in this series that started since 2009 followed by 2013, 2015 and 2018 in the past Decade. It evaluates progress towards the goals set in the United Nations’ Second Decade of Action for Road Safety as per the United Nations resolution 74/299.

The seminar brought together key representatives from federal and provincial police, health, transport departments, rescue organisations, and highway authorities. Hameed Akhtar, chief of NTRC, presented Pakistan’s advancements in five key areas: Safe infrastructure, safe vehicles, safe road users, post-crash care, and road safety management. He further reaffirmed the understanding of road traffic accidents as a global health and development problem and to provide a data guided input for policy decisions on road safety, land use and urban planning.

The discussions highlighted the progress on the targets established in the National Road Safety Strategy 2018-2030 (NRSS) and the National Road Safety Action Plan 2020-2024. Additionally, the seminar underscored Pakistan’s commitment to international goals, including the UN SDG target 3.6, which aims to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50 per cent by 2030, and UN SDG target 11.2, which seeks to provide safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport for all by 2030.