Road safety decisions depend on understanding where risks exist and where improvements are needed most. Traditional road surveys have long played an important role in building that understanding, but surveys carried out at intervals provide a snapshot of conditions at a particular point in time.
Connected vehicle data adds another source of insight. Road conditions, skid resistance and operating speeds can be monitored continuously using data from vehicles already travelling on the road. Combined with established road safety assessment methods, these insights can help road authorities make evidence-based decisions about where safety improvements are needed most.
NIRA Dynamics is an AiRAP Accredited data provider, with connected vehicle data validated to support iRAP’s globally recognised road risk assessments and Star Rating models.
NIRA’s AiRAP Accreditation covers data for six road attributes: road condition, skid resistance, vehicle flow (AADT), operating speed (mean and 85th percentile), and speed limits. These attributes provide important inputs to iRAP’s road risk assessments and Star Rating models, helping road authorities understand road risk and where safety improvements may be needed.
The accreditation validates that NIRA’s data meets the quality standards required to support these applications. This means connected vehicle data can support iRAP’s established road safety assessment methodology, helping road authorities make evidence-based decisions about where safety improvements and infrastructure investments are needed most.
NIRA uses data from connected vehicles already travelling on the road to provide road condition and traffic insights at scale. This makes it possible to collect continuous insights across large road networks, complementing data collected through traditional road surveys.
Central to this capability is NIRA’s Road Surface Conditions (RSC) product, which monitors real-time changes in road grip and surface state across entire road networks. Data on skid resistance — one of the most direct indicators of accident risk — is collected continuously and at scale, providing a dynamic, evidence-based input for road safety assessment.
Together with information about vehicle flow, operating speeds and speed limits, these insights contribute to a broader understanding of road risk. This can help road authorities prioritise maintenance, infrastructure investments and safety improvements where they are needed most.
Connected vehicle data is not about replacing established road assessment methods. Physical surveys remain important, while connected vehicles offer an additional source of information that can complement them with continuous insights from vehicles already using the road network.
This can be particularly valuable in markets where traditional survey data is scarce, outdated or prohibitively expensive to collect. Because the data comes from connected vehicles, relevant road condition and traffic insights can be gathered across large geographic areas. For iRAP partners, road authorities and safety planners, this creates another scalable way to access data that can support road safety assessment and investment decisions.
The value of road data lies in how it can support better-informed decisions. By combining NIRA’s connected vehicle data with iRAP’s globally recognised assessment models, road authorities can gain insights that help identify high-risk roads, prioritise infrastructure investments and determine where safety improvements are needed most.
This is where AiRAP Accreditation plays an important role. It formally validates NIRA’s connected vehicle data for use in iRAP’s road risk assessments and Star Rating models, helping turn real-world road condition and speed data into insights that can support evidence-based decisions.
For NIRA, this is also closely connected to our ambition of creating roads that cars can read. Better road data can support better-informed decisions about where action is needed most, contributing to fewer high-risk roads and the wider ambition of Vision Zero.