Road Safety 2024: How urban planning and technology can save lives in the UAE

Crash data is being used in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to make road improvements to cut traffic accidents

In Abu Dhabi, a road safety audit is completed for all new highways to cover the design phase, identifying potential road safety problems before construction

The National's summer road safety series takes an in-depth look each week at issues concerning the well-being of motorists and moves being made to protect road users

Traffic jams and frustrated drivers have become familiar sights in the world’s busiest cities – and as Dubai and Abu Dhabi continue to grow rapidly, road safety becomes an ever more critical factor in how these metropolises evolve.

Urban hubs must evolve to keep pace with the changing demands of busy roads across the UAE, traffic collision experts and city planners told The National.

Road safety expert Tony Mathew has used TRL Software crash data analysis in cities around the world to identify potential safety improvements.

The software has been used in Dubai and Abu Dhabi to analyse crashes. Data is collected from those at the collision scene – including police officers and road users.

That information is then used to define specific safety modifications for that stretch of highway, to avoid further accidents.

“For a safe system, you must look at the road environment, the user and the vehicle,” Mr Mathew told The National.

“These three elements come together when certain speed crashes occur.

“Then … it is important to look at how the country is organised in its rescue and emergency response. This will determine the level of death and injuries on the network.”

Human behaviour and enforcement of road laws are safety foundations, but how cities are designed to cope with the needs of road users is of increasing significance.

While legislation and a changing work culture across Europe is taking vehicles off the roads, in developing nations traditional infrastructure has a greater role to play.

Collision speeds

Around 1.35 million people are killed on roads around the world, every year. Speed is a critical factor, but it is not the only contributor to road deaths.

Those involved in an 80kph collision on UK roads face a much greater chance of survival than at a similar speed in India because of faster hospital access and the ability to treat those injured within the “golden hour” after the crash injury, Mr Mathew said.

“Europe is looking at what should be the interface between a new kind of mobility with autonomous cars and e-scooters that's going to drive safety,” said Mr Mathew.

“Whereas if you go to a country like Bangladesh or India, infrastructure has been built in an unsafe manner, so there is a lot of work to be done, and also in human behaviour and compliance with regulations and laws.

“What is now generally established with developed country research is that awareness campaigns and education has a very limited effect on road safety improvements.

“But enforcement plays a key role in behaviour.

“We may be aware of certain rules, but we may not necessarily follow them unless we have a fear of enforcement. That's the general finding.”

Mr Mathew’s research in Himachal Pradesh revealed 20 per cent of road deaths in the Indian state and 30 per cent of serious injuries were taking place in specific corridors that made up less than two per cent of the road network.

As a result, remedial work could focus on this area, in the form of engineering improvements and increased enforcement, to increase safety and reduce deaths and injuries.

Road safety review

In Abu Dhabi, a road safety audit is carried out for all new highways at the design phase, identifying potential road safety problems before construction.

The city’s central traffic control system – Scoot – includes thousands of sensors to monitor traffic volumes at junctions.

Across the emirate, a speed management strategy covers speeding, engineering, laws, education, enforcement and co-ordination among road users and planners.

Just 120km away in Dubai, where the population is expected to soar from three million to 5.8 million by 2040, an ambitious plan aims to cut annual road deaths to 1.5 for every 100,000 people.

Improving driving habits, regular vehicle safety checks and traffic awareness campaigns are the cornerstones of that ambition.

Peter Schwinger, a German transport economics, strategy and planning specialist who has worked in the UAE, said the approach to city planning varies greatly around the world.

“One approach is what you see in Gulf and US cities that are car-oriented, then you have progressive European cities like Brussels and Stockholm, with more green, liberal policies: reducing speed, making the streets more liveable and lowering speed limits,” he said.

“Gulf cities and the conservative American approach actually separates vehicles from pedestrians as far as possible, with fencing.

“The whole road design is very exclusive. It’s not meant to include pedestrians, so they stay out.”

Mr Schwinger said public transport can be a big factor in slashing road deaths.

“If you build a new metro or implement a new bus line, automatically the loss of vehicle mileage driven in the network reduces accidents,” he said.

“It’s something to consider when a city is growing, to keep accident rates as low as possible.”

Data collected in 2023 by navigation system TomTom across cities with a population of 800,000 or more evaluated the impact of traffic congestion outside rush hour.

It showed motorists in Dublin faced the longest hold-ups, which increased travel times by 66 per cent outside peak hours.

The Irish capital was followed by the Indian city of Bengaluru (63 per cent), Mexico City (63 per cent), Bangkok and the capital of Peru – Lima (61 per cent) as the top five cities plagued by traffic jams.

Pedestrian focus

Dr Alexandra Gomes, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, has studied transport trends in the Gulf, particularly in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City.

“Ideally for planners who think about pedestrian-oriented road design, we want to design a city that doesn’t depend on cars,” said Dr Gomes.

“That’s not what’s happening. Although Abu Dhabi is improving some of this infrastructure for pedestrians, it’s still growing based on cars.

“The idea is planners should think about designing cities for pedestrian-oriented road design and then cars are added as an extra.”

Awareness and education programmes are another key factor in cutting traffic-related deaths, with most nations running road safety weeks.

In the UAE, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) launched a public education initiative in March during the Unified Gulf Traffic Week, alongside the Ministry of Interior and national traffic departments.

Multiple initiatives targeted groups including children, students, cyclists, scooter riders, people who have been injured in traffic accidents and the wider general public.

Removing human intervention – and error – through technology is seen as increasing road safety in terms of crashes and injuries.

“In London, there’s a combination of measures that not only improves the infrastructure for active mobility, but creates barriers to cars to go fast,” said Dr Gomes.

“In the Gulf, roads have the width to improve, to have cycle lanes. It’s just a question of the political will and then the planning will follow.”