The unavailability of consistent traffic accident data and road safety information limits the opportunities to provide target approaches to reduce road crashes. The European Commission has decided to meet the demand for this data by establishing a new European Road Safety Observatory. The structure and much of the initial content is being developed within the SafetyNet Integrated Project. This paper focuses on the design of the key components, containing macroscopic data (accident, risk exposure and performance indicators), data from in-depth investigations and data application (analyses, knowledge data base), as well as of the structure of the Observatory making it an integrated information system.