We are at a global turning point in road safety: Kelly Henning, Bloomberg Philanthropies

Billionaire media mogul and former New York city mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was in India earlier this week, has vowed to give away most of his wealth — his net worth is $35.7 billion — to charity. Bloomberg Philanthropies, the entity through which he is doing that, focuses on public health, environment, education, the arts and government innovation. One of the areas of focus in public health is road safety, and Mumbai and India are among the ten cities and five countries which will receive $125 million over five years and technical support to strengthen road safety laws and other measures. The organisation spent as much in the first phase of the initiative between 2010 and 2014, which also included India. Bloomberg Philanthropies has already committed over $1 billion just for public health initiatives. Kelly Henning, who heads public health programmes at Bloomberg Philanthropies, tells G Seetharaman in an email interview about the impact of its work in India and how an efficient public transport can reduce fatalities. Excerpts:

On how she arrived at the areas she focuses on in public health — while some of them like tobacco control and obesity prevention are obvious, others like drowning prevention and road safety are not so common

The public health work at Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses on challenges that result in very large burden of disease — for example, road traffic deaths are on track to become the seventh leading cause of death in the world by 2030 and drowning is the leading cause of child death (ages 1 and above) now in Bangladesh. These are huge public health problems that are severely underappreciated. We also invest in public health problems that have evidencebased solutions that can be implemented. We work with governments and not-forprofit organisations to reach measurable improvements in outcomes.

On working in India

We have been working in India in public health since January 2007 on tobacco control and since 2010 on road safety.

On what their work on road safety entails

The work focuses on national level support to government and NGOs to improve legislation on road safety — to bring it in line with international best practice. In addition, the Philanthropies provided support to the World Bank Road Safety Facility to assess high-risk roads and provide input on improvements in plans for these roads to reduce crashes, deaths, and injuries. Collaboration with ministry of health, traffic police, and local government officials in Hyderabad identified drunk driving as a major problem and technical assistance, equipment and training has been provided to address this issue.

On the impact of their work on road safety in India

A few highlights of the partnership work in India so far: there is now a Road Transport and Safety Bill pending. This bill has broad support from NGOs and the government and will hopefully move forward in 2015. The World Bank Road Safety Facility has worked with state governments to assess 4,700 miles of high-risk roads and provided a blueprint for improvements; support has been provided to two hard-hitting mass media campaigns on the dangers of drunk driving and the importance of wearing helmets; observational studies evaluating the work in Hyderabad show a reduction in drunk driving from 25% in 2011 to 5% in 2014.

On how will the new initiative in 10 select cities, including Mumbai, be different

The plan for the next five years [in the new initiative] is to focus on large cities given the massive move toward urbanisation globally. In cities, pedestrians, motorcyclists and bicyclists tend to make up a disproportionate share of road traffic injuries and deaths and as such these vulnerable road users will receive significant attention. Cities will first examine carefully their historical data on road crash injuries and deaths to help guide interventions that are most effective. Sustainable urban transportation, road design improvements and behavioural change such as helmet and seat belt wearing will all be covered in the new programme.

On working with governments, including at the local level, which have a reputation for being inefficient and corrupt

We have also worked at local levels in other countries in phase one of the road safety programme and seen some very encouraging results. As the culture of safety takes hold in a society, the public begins to expect and demand action on road safety. We believe we are at a global turning point in road safety — too many lives have been lost and families permanently impacted. National, state, and local governments all need to take action.

On whether there is any correlation between a good public transport network in a city and fewer accidental deaths and injuries

Yes, our global road safety partner EMBARQ has been working with us for the past five years to document the impact. Sustainable urban transport mobility is made safer by reducing car travel and moving people through safely designed pedestrian or bicycle lanes and mass transportation. High impact crashes can be significantly reduced by improvements that protect all road users, especially pedestrians and bicyclists, such as better road crossings, clearly designed intersections and speed bumps.

One example of mass transportation is the bus rapid transit system, which can reduce fatalities and crashes by 40-50% on affected corridors. The Macrobus in Guadalajara, Mexico, is proof that investing in sustainable urban transport saves lives. Between 2007 and 2011, there was a 9% reduction in road traffic crashes in Guadalajara, but in the Macrobus corridor, crashes were reduced 49% in the same period.