Hanoi, Vietnam, Receives 2025 Vision Zero for Youth International Leadership Award
CHAPEL HILL, NC, and HANOI, Vietnam (July 29, 2025) — The Vision Zero for Youth initiative is honored to name Hanoi, Vietnam, as the 2025 recipient of the Vision Zero for Youth International Leadership Award. Hanoi has been recognized for its commitment to improving traffic safety for students through transformative infrastructure improvements and safety initiatives aimed at ensuring safer conditions around school gate areas.
Led by the National Center for Safe Routes to School in the USA with support from the FIA Foundation, the International Vision Zero for Youth Leadership Award recognizes cities that take bold steps towards reaching zero traffic deaths among children and youth.
“We are pleased to honor Hanoi’s impressive efforts to make the streets around schools safer for children and youth,” said Nancy Pullen-Seufert, Director, National Center for Safe Routes to School. “Hanoi has been committed to focusing on key areas: infrastructure improvements, speed management, and prioritizing the most vulnerable road users, especially school children.”
The award committee chose Hanoi for its commitment to child and youth injury reductions through actions that started with a few pilot projects and have since led to safety installations around more than 100 schools. Slowing traffic speeds is critical for the safety of people walking and biking. Therefore, safety improvements included traffic calming measures like raised crossings and lane narrowing; pedestrian and bicyclist safety improvements like widened sidewalks and dedicated cycle lanes; and most notably, a new 30 km/h speed limit. Moreover, the city’s commitment to safety continues to grow.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the recognition of Hanoi as the recipient of the 2025 International Vision Zero for Youth Leadership Award,” said Phong Dao Duy, Vice Director of the Hanoi Department of Construction. “This is a great honor for our city, and we deeply appreciate the acknowledgment of our collective efforts to improve traffic safety for vulnerable groups, especially school children.”
“Hanoi has reimagined safer streets for its children,” said Natalie Draisin, Director of the North American Office and United Nations Representative for the FIA Foundation. “The Vision Zero for Youth International Leadership Award celebrates Hanoi’s commitment to scalable road safety pilots, specifically by improving infrastructure and vehicle speeds. These two key elements save lives and show decision-makers in Vietnam and across the world that targeted action works.”
Places recognized with the Vision Zero for Youth International Leadership Award have taken impressive action to improve walking and biking safety for their children and youth with the goal of building safer, healthier communities for everyone. The International Award is in its sixth year. This is the second time Vietnam has been recognized with the award; in 2022, Pleiku City and the greater Gia Lai Province in Vietnam received the award.
Led by the National Center for Safe Routes to School in the USA, the award program is guided by the Vision Zero for Youth International Leadership Award Committee, comprised of international road safety organizations including FIA Foundation, Cities4Children Global Alliance, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, Global Designing Cities Initiative, International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), Safe Kids, and Youth for Road Safety. Committee members nominate cities for consideration, and the full committee votes from a short list of candidate cities. Past recipients of the award were the Republic of Moldova; Lusaka, Zambia; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Bogotá, Colombia; Fortaleza, Brazil; and Pleiku City and Gia Lai Province, Vietnam. For more information about the Award and the achievements of past recipients, please visit www.visionzeroforyouth.org/awards/international/. To learn more about Vision Zero for Youth, visit: www.visionzeroforyouth.org.
Media contacts:
Kate Turner, FIA Foundation
k.turner@fiafoundation.org
+44 7879893222
Jennifer Palcher-Silliman, Vision Zero for Youth
silliman@hsrc.unc.edu
+1 919-923-1359
About Vision Zero for Youth
Launched by the National Center for Safe Routes to School in 2016, the Vision Zero for Youth initiative encourages communities and elected officials to focus safety improvements and efforts to slow traffic speeds where children and youth travel. Starting with youth can be the spark that creates community support for a broader Vision Zero program to eliminate all traffic fatalities. The initiative includes resources, ideas for taking action, opportunities for city leaders to commit, and national and international recognition programs. Support for the initiative is provided by the FIA Foundation and the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. Learn more at www.visionzeroforyouth.org.
About the National Center for Safe Routes to School
Established in 2006, the National Center for Safe Routes to School helps communities change their culture around safe and active travel. Its role includes national coordination and technical assistance for U.S. Walk & Roll to School Day and Bike & Roll to School Day, and providing tools, training, research, and evaluation for safe walking and bicycling for children and youth. The National Center for Safe Routes to School served as the U.S. Federal Highway Administration’s clearinghouse for the federal SRTS program for 11 years. Learn more at www.saferoutesinfo.org.