New York City’s Executive Order 19 requires Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) in contracts for the purchase or lease of new civilian city fleet vehicles and pedestrian alerts in contracts for the purchase or lease of city fleet trucks.

Together for Safer Roads said this provides a model for cities looking to protect lives by scaling fleet safety solutions.

“New York City’s decision to expand proven fleet safety technologies across its municipal fleet is an important example of how cities can move from testing and research to implementation at scale,” said Peter Goldwasser, executive director, Together for Safer Roads.

In July, Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed Executive Order 19, which also directs the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to retrofit all existing city fleet trucks with pedestrian alerts by June 30, 2029.

Goldwasser said this action builds on years of testing and implementation by DCAS. The city has already equipped 1,000 vehicles across 23 vehicle types with ISA, and DCAS reports that the program has reduced dangerous speeding among equipped vehicles by 64%.

Pedestrian alerts, which warn pedestrians, bicyclists, and other road users when trucks are turning, have already been rolled out on 800 city trucks.

What is particularly significant is the progression from testing safety interventions, to measuring their performance, to incorporating them into how a major fleet purchases and operates vehicles. This is how proven safety solutions move from promising ideas to standard practice, explained Goldwasser.

“Together for Safer Roads has been proud to work with New York City and DCAS on fleet safety, including through our Truck of the Future program pilots and our broader efforts to advance safer vehicle design, direct vision, telematics, and technologies that can better protect drivers and vulnerable road users,” Goldwasser said. “New York City’s actions demonstrate what is possible not only for one municipal fleet, but for public and private fleets across the country. The challenge in fleet safety is increasingly not whether effective technologies and practices exist. It is how fleets can adopt them consistently, incorporate them into procurement and operations, measure their impact, and implement proven solutions at scale.”

“New York City is providing an important model for how that can be done for other cities across the nation,” he added.