Commuting Safety
Vision Zero Fund and Nike are working together to reduce injuries and deaths from road accidents among garment and footwear workers
Sector
When
April 2022 – December 2025
Development Partners
NIKE inc.
Project Code
GLO/16/01/MUL
THE COMMUTING SAFETY CHALLENGE
In 2025, Vision Zero Fund launched the “Commuting Safety Challenge”, supporting four garment factories in Cambodia and Vietnam to implement practical commuting safety measures. Proposals were reviewed by a panel of experts in occupational safety and health (OSH) and road safety. Learn more about our experts and their background here.
Each winning factory received a USD 10,000 grant to implement solutions aimed at enhancing workers’ commuting safety in and around garment factory premises. Over 40,500 workers benefited from interventions including improved driver behaviour, upgraded infrastructure and road signalling, deployment of safety monitors to manage traffic flows, introduction of staggered shifts to reduce peak congestion, and strengthened data collection and use for risk identification and prevention. In all cases, the solutions built on previous initiatives or complemented existing measures. In many cases, factories also provided additional funding to implement further actions.
Upcoming webinar! Improving Commuting Safety in the Garment Supply Chain: Good Practices from Vietnam
Date: October 22nd
Time: 16:30 (Vietnam) / 11:30 (CEST),
Prior registration required. Register now!
Join the webinar to learn about good practices and lessons learned in commuting safety from garment factories in Viet Nam that participated in the Vision Zero Fund’s “Commuting Safety Challenge.” The webinar will explore effective approaches to improving the safety of workers’ journeys to and from work, while inspiring and informing other factories to take action to
ABOUT VISION ZERO FUND´S WORK ON COMMUTING SAFETY
In 2022, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Vision Zero Fund and Nike Inc. launched an initiative to cut deaths and injuries among garment and footwear workers.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1.3 million people die annually because of road traffic accidents, and between 20 and 50 million people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring disabilities. The majority of those killed or injured belong to economically productive age groups (15-64 years), and accidents cause considerable economic loss to individuals, families, employers, and societies. In many countries, garment and footwear sector workers are disproportionately involved in road accidents.
Improving commuting safety in the garment sector requires the implementation of a collective action approach, in which all stakeholders work together to address the systemic issues that lie at the root of commuting accidents.
The initiative has:
- Developed a Theory of Change that identifies the underlying causes to be addressed to reduce injuries and deaths from road accidents involving garment and footwear workers (see video below).
- Produced the “Collective Action for a Safe Commute: Action manual and checklist for employers and workers in the garment and footwear sector to enhance workers’ commuting safety,” piloted in Egypt and Ethiopia.
- Systematized the experience of the Cambodian Transportation Working Group, an initiative coordinated by Better Factories Cambodia that brought together brands and stakeholders to improve commuting safety for garment and footwear workers.
- Generated two country evidence-based assessments on commuting safety. The research process collected data from 3,000 factory managers, workers, and drivers from 10+ different factories in 5 locations across Egypt and Ethiopia.
- Developed the free, self-paced, online training course “Collective Action for a Safe Commute”.
- Delivered two master classes on commuting safety (you can access them here and here) and organized a webinar on good practices, and one on addressing common challenges from assessment to action. Please find the used presentation here.
