Organisation: Agilysis
Date of Publication: August 2026
Uploaded to Knowledge Centre: 25 August 2026
For most of the past decade, road safety performance in Great Britain has been judged by one figure: the number of people killed or seriously injured in the preceding year. That figure describes the network faithfully — but only once the harm has been done.
Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) exist to close that gap. They make it possible to observe risk as it accumulates, rather than count its consequences after the event. The Department for Transport’s Road Safety Strategy, published on 7 January 2026, puts SPIs at the centre of national policy for the first time — though Scotland has taken this approach for over five years already. The strategy sets two targets against a 2022–2024 baseline: a 65% reduction in KSI casualties and a 70% reduction in child KSI casualties, both by 2035 — the first national casualty reduction targets in 15 years.
This paper sets out what an SPI is, why leading and lagging measures behave so differently, where the national framework still has room to grow, what can be measured today with new data sources, and how area-level reporting can be made statistically defensible — including new Agilysis analysis of all 207 highway authorities and 43 police force areas against the six national indicators currently reported at area level.
Download the white paper from the Agilysis website:
https://agilysis.co.uk/2026/08/13/safety-performance-indicators-explained