Transport Insights

In news that will surprise no one, National Highways missed its casualty target for the 2020-25 Road Investment Strategy (RIS 2) by more than 10 percentage points.

Considering that the target was to achieve a 50% reduction in killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties in 2025 against a 2005-09 baseline, it means that the company also missed the RIS 1 target of a 40% cut.

But the strategic road network did see an improvement of around 2.8% in KSIs compared to 2024, suggesting that if National Highways had made any effort to reduce casualties earlier in RIS 2 (something it has admitted not doing) there might have been fewer casualties on its network at the end of the period.

According to RRCGB 2025: Road type and environment, published today by the DfT, there were 785 KSI casualties on SRN motorways and 1091 KSIs on SRN A roads – a total of 1,876.

While this is around 2.8% lower than the 1,931 KSIs in 2024, it is only a cut of around 1.5% on the baseline (approximately 3,100), meaning that the total is only 39.5% down overall against the baseline, compared to 38% a year ago.

It is therefore higher than the number (1,868) required to hit the 2020 target of a 40% cut. National Highways is effectively five years behind where it should be, having only come into existence (as Highways England) in 2015.

KSIs on motorways appear to have actually risen from 777 to 785 but it appears that fatalities on the SRN fell in 2025, driven by a significant fall on SRN A roads, from 132 in 2024 to 106 in 2025.

I have been writing for sometime about criticism from National Highways’ regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), that the company did not do enough early in RIS 2 to meet the 2025 target, and an admission from a senior National Highways executive that it didn’t bother because the target was not entirely within its control.

The company did say it would provide an explanation for this, but the ORR appears to have lost it.

I have also written about the company’s (limited) additional road safety activities during the last year of the RIS, under pressure from the ORR, which do appear to have made a difference, serving to reinforce the point about what might have been achieved with more effort early on.