The Gloucester Safer City project began in April 1996 and ran for five years until March 2001. Its main aim was to reduce casualties by at least one third by April 2002 (compared to the baseline average for 1991-95). This allows a year after the end of the project for it to fully affect the level of casualties. TRL (the Transport Research Laboratory) will provide the Department with the results of detailed monitoring after the 2002 target. This is an interim report to gauge the early success of the project. The report contains considerable detail on project management, on what was actually done and where. You don't need to be familiar with this level of detail to appreciate what has been done. We include it for those who want to have a full account of the Gloucester experiment. The signs are that the project has been a success. Some indicators are that, compared to 1991-95, so far: • serious injuries and deaths are down by 38 per cent, and that is better than the target; • slight casualties have remained fairly constant, compared to a national rise of 7 per cent (over 1996-99), and despite the greater awareness of road safety in Gloucester leading to a rise in accident reporting of 13 per cent; • adult pedestrian casualties fell by 22 per cent and child pedestrian casualties by 13 per cent; • and the severity ratio (the proportion of all casualties killed and seriously injured) fell from 13 per cent to 8 per cent. (Author/publisher)
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