---
title: "Learning across borders: why VIA joined IRTAD"
description: "VIA has become an official member of the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD), to contribute practical experience and bring international insights back into local and national road safety analysis."
date: 2026-10-27
type: news
authors: ["Giedo Donkers"]
canonical: https://www.via.nl/gbr/en/articles/learning-across-borders-why-via-joined-irtad
---

# Learning across borders: why VIA joined IRTAD

> VIA has become an official member of the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD), to contribute practical experience and bring international insights back into local and national road safety analysis.

For VIA, working with road safety data has never been only about collecting information. The more important question is what that information actually tells us. That is also why international knowledge exchange matters to us.

VIA previously participated in an IRTAD meeting. We have now taken the next step and become an official member of the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group.

### More data also creates more questions

VIA has worked with traffic and road safety data for more than four decades. During that time, the available information has changed enormously.

Where analyses once relied heavily on periodic tables and registered collision data, today we can combine collision data with speed data, traffic volumes, road characteristics and other road safety indicators. That creates new possibilities, but also new responsibilities.

Every dataset raises questions. What exactly is being measured? How complete is the information? How reliable is it at a specific location? Can two years be compared directly? And how should one source be combined with another?

More data does not automatically lead to better decisions. Good analysis still depends on understanding the data behind the map, graph or score.

### Why IRTAD is relevant to VIA

That is where the connection with IRTAD becomes particularly relevant.

IRTAD brings together organisations that work on many of the same methodological questions: collision registration, data quality, definitions, exposure and the evaluation of road safety developments.

For VIA, membership provides an opportunity to contribute practical experience from our own work with road safety data. At the same time, it gives us direct access to knowledge and methodologies developed by governments, research institutes and road safety experts in other countries.

That exchange helps us challenge our own assumptions and improve the way we interpret data.

### International knowledge, local application

International cooperation does not mean that one country’s approach can simply be copied elsewhere. Road networks, mobility patterns, legislation and registration systems differ. But those differences are exactly what make international exchange useful.

Why does one country register serious injuries differently? Which indicators are used to evaluate policy? How are new types of data incorporated into road safety analysis? And why do some countries see different developments among certain groups of road users?

Those questions can provide new perspectives on the way we work closer to home.

For VIA, IRTAD membership is therefore not only about joining an international network. It is about continuing to develop the knowledge behind our work, contributing our own experience and bringing useful international insights back into local and national road safety analysis.

Read more: [Road safety data does not stop at national borders](https://www.via.nl/gbr/en/articles/road-safety-data-does-not-stop-at-national-borders)