The Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio de Freitas, participated today (16) in the delivery of an international award to the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (Dnit). Intended to assess the degree of safety of highways in relation to the level of accidents, the award was granted to Dnit in December of the past for the application of a methodology that evaluated the issue in more than 60 thousand kilometers of federal roads.
The award, called the 5-Star Performer Award, was given by iRAP (International Highway Assessment Program), a non-profit organization based in England dedicated to the work of saving lives and reducing injuries. serious problems through safer road projects.
Dnit was awarded for adopting the methodology developed by this NGO which, among other things, has a road quality classification system, with data collection, coding and classification of federal road sections in stars.
During the ceremony, Minister Tarcísio de Freitas said the award will force Dnit to “pursue” the construction of roads with better ratings in the standards set by iRAP, adopting engineering innovations and incorporating parameters and standards to make them safer.
“Brazil is a signatory to several agreements that aim to reduce traffic deaths. Indeed, [os acidentes] are a problem with important social and economic repercussions, and it is essential to be effective in combating accidents and deaths in traffic. It is a goal that we must pursue,” said the minister.
The director-general of Dnit, Antônio Santos Silva, said that increasing road safety is a great challenge and cited as an example of intervention to make roads safer a work carried out on the shoulder of the BR-135, in Piauí, which reduced the occurrence of road accidents. “We have to improve more and more, and we all benefit from this, particularly the Brazilian population, who will have safer highways with the great objective of saving lives,” he said.
The global director of projects at iRAP, Julio Urzua, highlighted, among the reasons for awarding the award, the inclusion of the NGO’s methodology to increase the protection of road users in the concession projects under the leadership of the ministry.
“The iRAP tool helps authorities define the extent to which road infrastructure determines the likelihood of an accident occurring and protects vehicle occupants from serious injury or death when such an accident occurs,” he said.
Urzua added that a “successful” program by the Ministry of Infrastructure is including in some concessions a requirement to measure the safety levels of granted roads using iRAP metrics.
