With May signifying National Road Safety Week, May also signifies the National Road Safety Partnership Program’s (NRSPP) seventh year since it was launched by Prince Michael of Kent at Melbourne’s RACV club as part of the UN Decade for Action on Road Safety Forum.

The NRSPP is a government-supported, industry-led, collaborative network which aims to support Australian businesses and organisations to develop a positive road safety culture and help protect their workers and the public, not only during work hours, but also when staff are ‘off-duty’.

The NRSPP has come a long way. Over the past seven years, the NRSPP has formally developed over 130 active partnerships.

In 2020, the NRSPP developed:

Also, with over 1,000 downloads of the NRSPP’s Toolbox Talks, we are proud to see the resources the NRSPP develop being utilised by organisations.

2020 was an eventful year for the NRSPP, as it has been for many. However, the impact of COVID did not slow the NRSPP down. Content was created by the NRSPP to discuss how COVID impacted organisations and what can be done to support workers. We did this in collaboration with similar organisations one stand about being Safer Together.

For example, the NRSPP created a Thought Leadership topic on how COVID-19 has changed travel. A particularly popular Thought Leadership topic was the importance of Mindfulness when driving.

The NRSPP’s Webinars continued their success in 2020, with topics on road rage, heavy vehicles/CLOCS-A and maintaining your vehicle during COVID to name a few.

With regards to projects, NRSPP through its host host Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC) has several large collaborative projects underway bringing researchers and industry together on issues our partners have raised. Just one example is the two year AAA funded project developing fatigue management systems with Tip Top.

The NRSPP’s reach on social media also increased, with currently:

The NRSPP website hit a high for monthly users in April with 12,288 users who had 22,618-page views, which is a three-fold increase from last year.

The NRSPP will soon be launching the Organisational Campaign on Driver Sleepiness, a campaign that has been in the works since the beginning of this year.

Also, this year, the NRSPP is undergoing a large-scale evaluation led by the MUARC. This will provide more detailed information on the impact the NRSPP is having on organisations and road safety. In particular, it will indicate how the NRSPP is tracking on outcome and process indicators.

NRSPP runs a diverse range of working groups. The Utilities Forum is the NRSPP’s longest running working group, where partners benchmark performance, share knowledge and compare approaches to resolving common risks. Re:act is also a long-running working group, led by Hard Edge and Swinburne University and has now expanded to New South Wales. This project aims to promote 18-25 year old drivers to increase their awareness of the dangers on the road. CLOCS-A and Heavy Vehicle Tool Box Talks are two new additions.

The NRSPP’s growth over the past seven years has been very exciting. We would like to thank all our partners, without which, achieving the NRSPP’s mission would not be possible.

The NRSPP wishes to acknowledge and thank its current Independent Chairperson Prof. Barry Watson, host MUARC, all of its Core Funders, Steering Committee Partners and all of the numerous partners who have been part of the journey.

Have a comment? Leave a reply