Driving Change Together

National Road Safety Week and the Centre for Transport Safety Asia Pacific

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This year, communities across Australia are coming together to remember lives lost, take the #DriveSOS (Drive So Others Survive) pledge, and commit to safer choices on the road. National Road Safety Week is a vital national conversation, and one that NTRO is proud to be part of.

The numbers remind us why this conversation matters so deeply. Every year, more than 1,300 Australians are killed on our roads and more than 40,000 are seriously injured. Behind every statistic is a family, a community, a life changed forever.

‘National Road Safety Week galvanises the whole community. NTRO's Centre for Transport Safety Asia Pacific is the institutional commitment that carries that momentum forward — every week of the year.’ - Jimmy Liakos, NTRO Principal, Transport & Risk Management

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Introducing the Centre for Transport Safety Asia Pacific

The Centre for Transport Safety Asia Pacific is a wholly owned initiative of NTRO with Cranfield University as its foundational partner, designed to operate as the region's first truly independent, multi-modal centre for transport safety. It will work across all transport domains, with a particular focus on road, aviation, rail, and marine. Road safety will be a major beneficiary of the Centre’s activities by acknowledging, like other transport domains, that the problems that drive road trauma are systemic and not domain-specific.

Its purpose is simple: to drive significant, lasting improvements in transport safety through world-class research, intelligence, standards, professional development, and advisory — and to share that expertise across the Asia Pacific region where it is most urgently needed.

Building on Australia’s strong foundation

NTRO sees the Centre as a direct expression of what this week stands for — a commitment not just to raising awareness, but to building the capability, knowledge, and tools that give that awareness its greatest possible impact.

Australia has built genuinely world-class foundations in transport safety. We have some of the world's most respected regulatory frameworks, road assessment tools used globally, and decades of accumulated expertise. Fatality rates per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled remain above the OECD median and continuing to invest in the translation of that knowledge into consistent, system-level outcomes is exactly the work that the Centre supports.

Across the Asia Pacific, the challenge is more acute still. The region is now the world's largest transport market, driven by middle-class growth across Asia and significant investment in new road and rail infrastructure, and aviation networks. But safety frameworks, investigation skills, and data quality have not kept pace.

“Australia has world-class expertise in transport safety. The Centre for Transport Safety Asia Pacific exists to extend the reach of that expertise — across domains, across borders and across all seasons." - Jimmy Liakos

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What the Centre will do

The Centre will deliver on its promise of a safer transport future through six interconnected pillars of activity, each designed to address a specific failure point in how transport safety knowledge currently reaches decision-makers.

• Applied safety research focused on outcome driven research to address the most urgent safety issues.
• Standards development and management. Examples in the road safety domain include the risk-driven Basic Road Safety Standard for heavy road vehicle operations, and the Best Practice No-Blame Road Crash Investigation Standard, as well as other sector-specific guidelines. Through these programs the Centre will develop an accreditation and assessment framework that raises the bar for what 'good' looks like for road safety and gives organisations a credible, independent benchmark to work towards.
• Professional development and education. A comprehensive offering of workshops, CPD-accredited courses, executive briefings, and an annual cross-domain summit for transport safety leaders will build capability in the professional sector.
• Safety data hub and and intelligence platform will address the data rich-intelligence-poor problem directly. The Centre will leverage its Transport Risk Intelligence Platform to transform raw data into decision-grade risk insight, which brings genuine analytical capability to organisations that currently rely on historical crash statistics and limited tools available within the safety toolkit.
• Advisory and implementation services will connect expertise to the decisions that matter most. From strategic government program relationships to specific focus areas servicing organisations that need expert access, this pillar ensures that the Centre's knowledge reaches the people with the authority and the budget to act on it.
• Technology and infrastructure innovation fostering the development of new technologies and safety innovations in infrastructure, including network risk assessments, road safety audits, investment planning support, and post-crash investigation services.

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An invitation to build on this week’s momentum

National Road Safety Week asks Australians to take a pledge: to drive so others survive. It is a powerful, human call to action. The Centre for Transport Safety Asia Pacific is NTRO's institutional version of that same pledge. We're committed to do more than raise awareness, but to build the structures and capabilities that make the awareness count.

We are inviting governments to engage with the Centre as a trusted partner, industry to build and use tools, guides, and standards, and colleagues and community groups across the transport sector — both in Australia and throughout the Asia Pacific — to join us as partners in shaping a safer transport future.

Sign up to receive updates at the CTSAP site in the link below or contact us here.

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