A free website to help road safety practitioners evaluate their education, training and publicity activities has been launched by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) and the Department for Transport.

At the heart of the Road Safety Evaluation website is E-valu-it - an interactive tool that helps practitioners define exactly what they are doing and why and design and carry out their evaluation. It also promotes the publication and sharing of results.

The site - www.roadsafetyevaluation.com - also includes background information and guidance about evaluation.

It was developed after it was found that, while evaluation of road safety engineering was already an established discipline, road safety practitioners faced difficulties in evaluating their education, training and publicity (ETP) activities.

Mike Penning, road safety minister, said: “In the current economic climate everyone wants to make sure they are spending taxpayers’ money in the most effective way. To do that it is vital organisations can accurately evaluate all activities - whether they are road engineering measures or education campaigns.

“This new website will allow local authorities to assess the value of education, training and publicity activities, which will in turn help them to design high quality schemes and target them where they will have the most impact. I am delighted that we have been able to work with RoSPA to develop this invaluable tool and I hope it will be widely used by road safety practitioners.”

E-valu-it helps practitioners plan, carry out and report the results of ETP evaluations. The system produces bespoke recommendations for the type of evaluation that could be conducted based on the answers given to a series of questions. It can be used for interventions that are planned, in progress or have already taken place.

Twelve regional workshops, involving the DfT, RoSPA and local authorities across Britain, are being held as part of the website’s development. Road Safety Evaluation is also being supported by 12 regional champions who can explain to potential users the benefits of using E-valu-it.

The website is free to use, and there is no limit on the number of people who can sign up from any one organisation.