The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Boboye Oyeyemi has canvassed for regional data platform as the panacea for addressing the challenges of data differentiations confronting various countries in Africa. He made the assertion in Abuja while delivering a keynote speech at the second annual general meeting of the Africa Transport Policy Programme (SSATP) held at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.
Oyeyemi who spoke on the topic, “Importance of Data in Road Safety Management: The FRSC Experience,” explained the importance of data in road safety management, rescue and intervention measures, stressing that with poor or inadequate data, the challenges of road safety management could be greatly heightened. He applauded the World Bank for its support for road safety development in Nigeria, noting that the Country Capacity Review of Road Safety Management and Safe Corridor Project it carried out in the country have contributed immensely to safer road environment.
He stressed the importance of World Bank’s policy on the 10 percent of cost of road construction on road safety enhancement. According to him FRSC has benefitted immensely from logistics provisions from the funds, giving example of some pedestrian bridges constructed in parts of Abuja Municipality as part of the benefits from the dedicated funds.
The Corps Marshal enumerated the positive impact that data have on effective road safety management in the country, disclosing that various reforms have been carried out by the FRSC to enhance the integrity of the data it produces. He added that with the increasing level of collaboration initiated by the Corps with relevant stakeholders like police and hospitals, coupled with the training on data collation being provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), the integrity of Nigeria’s crash data is being accepted globally.
This international acceptance he said is being enhanced by the National Road Traffic Information System (NRTIS) which serves as a platform where relevant stakeholders from various agencies meet regularly to share data and harmonize them for uniform presentation. He emphasized that for African countries to have credible crash data, the need for a regional platform where representatives of the various countries could meet regularly to discuss the challenges of data collation and agree on the basic concepts with a view to harmonizing their differences cannot be overemphasized.
The Corps Marshal further assured members of the SSATP that Nigeria remains committed to pursuit of safer road environment through credible data collation, harmonization and presentation, saying the choice of the country as the venue for the second annual general meeting of the Program will no doubt add impetus to the search for a credible and efficient data that could facilitate the attainment of safer road environment and efficient transportation system in Africa.
The theme of the two days workshop which attracted participants from various African countries and international stakeholders where technical papers were presented at the different sessions was, “Towards the Establishment of a Road Safety Observatory in Africa.”