Safer School Zone in Jaipur

In November 2018, 21 Alliance Advocates from around Asia were trained to advocate for safer school zones using a demonstration project. Each one selected a target school in their home city to replicate the project. Now, nine months on, Advocates are seeing success. 

Om Sharma, President of Safe Drive Save Life, India, was one of the cohort of Advocates. On return to Jaipur in the State of Rajasthan, Om assessed Sarthi International School using the International Road Safety Assessment Programme (iRAP)’s star rating system, where a five-star road is the safest and a one-star road the least safe. The Global Road Safety Performance Targets agreed by UN Member States set a recommendation for all roads to be a three-star minimum.

Om found that the roads around the school were two star on the iRAP scale. He identified some measures that would increase the safety of the road to a three-star standard, including sidewalks, traffic lights, road markings, and speed bumps.

Om took his findings to Jaipur Development Office and Transport Department. Safe Drive Save Life has a good relationship with the Transport Department of Rajasthan State, which it has been working with for the last 10 years.

The authorities found this to be an important issue and wanted to know more about Star Rating for Schools. They agreed that it was very important tool for road safety assessment surrounding schools and were convinced to get involved. Safe Drive Save Life also targeted influencers in the area. The school itself in particular was already pursuing the issue of safety around the school for a long time but did not have the specialism or tools. It was therefore very interested in the safe school zone project and Star Rating for Schools. 

So far, traffic lights and speed bumps have been implemented around the school and Safe Drive Save Life are working with the transport department to get further improvements to the sidewalks and road markings.

 

See before and after pictures below: