AIP Foundation
The Pitch
AIP Foundation created Pleiku City’s first school zones, which improved student safety and sparked a movement to create safe school zones across Vietnam.
The Problem
Pleiku City’s schools are typically located along highways where large transport vehicles pass by at high speeds, yet they lacked pedestrian safety infrastructure like sidewalks, speed limit signs, road markings and more. Because Vietnam had no official definition for school zones, protections around these campuses were minimal. The combination of insufficient safety measures and close proximity to highways put students at significant risk during their daily commutes.
The Process
- Piloted infrastructure modifications at two schools, collaborating with the local government to illustrate the benefits of a model school zone
- Created working committees to develop action plans and define responsibilities
- Brought in experts to evaluate and improve infrastructure and traffic enforcement approaches
- Organized public forums so community members could communicate their concerns to government officials
The Impact
- Improved Pleiku City’s school safety agenda
- Inspired the addition of safety zones in the rest of the city’s primary schools (made possible by a team of dedicated staff and funding)
- Expanded safe school zone infrastructure—that reduce driving speeds and improve pedestrian safety— to all 31 primary schools in Pleiku City
- Reduced average vehicle speeds in school zones to <40 kilometers per hour
- Decreased the amount of crashes involving students
- Increased the amount of drivers reducing their speed when passing through school zones to 86.1% by making school zones and speed limit signs more easily identifiable
- Drastically improved student safety
- Led to the passage of national legislation aimed at reducing speed limits in school zones
- Scaled the project to 13 other jurisdictions via a three-year partnership with Vietnam’s Ministry of Transport
