School journeys for 17 million children across Vietnam are safer thanks to the Slow Zones, Safe Zones (SZSZ) programme, which successfully leveraged a city pilot through to a national legislative framework. 
 
The AIP Foundation-led programme addressed high speeds around schools, which is a significant contributor to the country’s road death and injury rate, one of the highest in the region. The initial project was part of the Botnar Child Road Safety Challenge supported by Fondation Botnar, the Global Road Safety Partnership, and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile and subsequent phases were supported by the FIA Foundation and its Child Health Initiative. 

Pilot 

The first stage was a 2018 two-school pilot in Pleiku City, Gia Lai Province, which assessed and improved infrastructure to lower vehicle speeds and protect vulnerable road users using the iRAP Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) methodology. The SZSZ programme was then scaled up to improve streets, serving a total of 31 primary schools. All the schools received initial 1 or 2-star ratings and, after the improvements, they all received 4 and 5-star ratings, which reduced road crashes by over a fifth. 
 
Regional scale-up

Building on the successful Pleiku City implementation, the Gia Lai Provincial Government legislated for school zone speed limits of 30 km/h on city roads and 40km/h on national roads. It also instructed Pleiku City to allocate city budget for school zone improvements. Over the course of five years, the SZSZ programme directly benefited 130,000 road users nationally and a further 16 million indirectly.  
 
National guidance  

The Vietnamese Government expanded the model nationwide through the development of a technical guide for local Vietnamese governments to design new school zones and assess existing school infrastructure. The Safe School Zones Vietnam Guide (SSZ Guide) was launched in October 2021 and became the first national reference material on safe school zones in August 2023, endorsed by the Ministry of Transport, and its implementation built the evidence base to support legislation strengthening a legal school zone definition in Vietnam.  

Street action and funding  

A comprehensive school zone traffic management and infrastructure review and updates, along with new action plans to improve safety, were mandated by a Prime Ministerial Directive and a Ministry of Transport Decision, respectively. All 63 Vietnamese provinces were encouraged to adopt SSZ Guide recommendations, further supported by USD 3.5 million investment from the Vietnamese Government to support upgrades around 3,300 schools.  
   
Watch the global webinar for the Safe School Zones Guide Global Launch here.