TRL has been contracted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to establish a formal process for the UNHCR’s response to collisions. It includes investigating and providing a root cause analysis for collisions, as well as identifying patterns and trends that generate the insight underpinning action plans; the goal is to develop interventions to make using UNHCR vehicles safer for everyone on the road. TRL will investigate serious collisions involving UNHCR vehicles, where people have suffered severe or fatal injuries, or the crash resulted in a total loss of the UNHCR vehicle. TRL will also collect data allowing them to analyse all the factors that caused or contributed to the collision.
The UNHCR fleet is made up of over 10,000 vehicles. With this volume, road crashes constitute a significant threat to the health and safety of UNHCR personnel, partners, Persons of Concern, and the local communities in which they operate. Additionally, having vehicles out of action or personnel incapacitated by injury immediately reduces the organisation’s capacity to fulfil its mission. Improving road safety is therefore of utmost importance.
TRL undertake scene investigations in domestic and low-risk locations, and provide desktop reviews of all the data gathered using well-established processes. All of the international vehicle safety standards guiding new vehicle designs are based on crash testing done by TRL, and this deep understanding of vehicle dynamics is particularly relevant for UNHCR because it has an assorted fleet of HGVs, motorcycles, and many specialist vehicles in regular use.
Most road-building standards have been written by TRL, particularly in regions where UNHCR is active, which helps interpret the environmental context of collisions. Additionally, TRL’s collision investigation team is regularly called upon to give evidence in court in high-profile incidents reported in the media, so the team are adept at managing different types of public reporting of incidents.
The collaborative programme devised for UNCHR will lead to safer ways of working for UNHCR drivers, but it will also ultimately support the communities in which they deliver their mission. By demonstrating good practices and adopting a Safe Systems Approach, the knowledge transfer process within this programme, which is integral to the UNHCR mission, will inevitably lead to safer roads for all.
In this webinar hosted by Highways News, Paul Hutton speaks to Craig Arnold who leads the work for TRL, and to Carlos Roberto Guemez Shedden, Senior Road Safety Coordinator, from UNHCR's Road Safety Unit:
