Once the covenant had been signed by the umbrella organizations of provincial governments, local governments, and the central government on December 15th 1997, the Start-up Programme Sustainably Safe officially commenced. The Start-up programme consists of the first phase of the Sustainably Safe implementation and, after being extended, continued to January 1st 2003. The Start-up programme contains 24 agreements about a coherent package of measures and activities aimed at improving road safety. These include infrastructural measures, rules and regulations, financing, enforcement, education, public information, knowledge development and exchange, monitoring and evaluation, and the preparation for the second phase. After the Sustainably Safe Managing Regional Group ceased to exist, the Start-up Programme Sustainably Safe has become the responsibility of the National Traffic and Transport Board (NTTB). This is the highest managerial body for traffic and transport, in which the three government levels are represented. At the civil service level, the Start-up programme is led by the Road Safety Advice Group, also containing the three government levels. In principle, the progress of the Start-up programme is discussed in the Road Safety Advice Group, and any managerial matters are put on the agenda for discussion and decision in the NTTB. The Transport Research Centre, after consultation with the three government levels, has already made two progress reports about the Start-up programme. These are entitled 'Together starting…' (September 1998) and 'Together getting going…' (March 2000). Between mid 2000 and mid 2001, the Start-up Programme Sustainably Safe was evaluated at the national and regional levels, together with VERDI and the Decentralization Impulse. Because of this so-called COVER evaluation, the third progress report was postponed until 2002. The final report will be begun with in 2003 and presented early 2004. This final report will contain the actually achieved results of the Start-up programme agreements. This report is, thus, the last progress report about the Start-up Programme Sustainably Safe and is, just as the previous progress reports, the result of the Start-up programme agreements. To do this, as much use as possible has been made of the available data and meeting reports of, among others, the Road Safety Advice Group. This progress report will be offered to the Road Safety Advice Group via the agenda commission.
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