By the European Transport Safety Council in partnership with 3M Europe and Toyota

The Roads to Respect A European programme for Better Road Safety Engineering

European Transport Safety Council

A science - based approach to road safety policy:

• 37 organisations from across Europe under one unique umbrella promoting science-based transport safety measures at EU level

• More than 200 experts contributing to ETSC’s Projects, Reviews, Policy Papers, Newsletters, Positions, Lectures, Press Releases, Year Books, etc.

• The European Commission, member organisations, member states and corporate sponsors are funding our work

ETSC: priority-based safety work

ETSC: Priority-based safety work

Monitoring EU transport safety policy

Protecting Vulnerable Road Users - VOICE

Ranking EU countries‘ performances - Road Safety PIN

Preventing Drink Driving and Speeding

Campaigning for the treatment

of high risk infrastructure – R2R

Road Safety in Europe

• 39,200 deaths in the EU in 2006

• Around 3 million injuries

• Socio-economic cost: € 200 billion

• Non-quantifiable pain and suffering

The EU target and Strategy

White Paper (2001)White Paper (2001)"European transport

policy for 2010 : time to decide"

Cutting road deaths Cutting road deaths by 50% by 2010by 50% by 2010

3rd Road Safety Action 3rd Road Safety Action Programme (2003)Programme (2003)

Sharing responsibility

Insufficient progress

towards the target…

Insufficient progress...

EU:

• Roughly 39,200 people are still dying every year on Europe's roads. 

• Although this represents an 24% drop in six years, the EU is still some way off from its 50% target, set in 2001.

Romania:• In 2006, 2573 people died in Romanian roads;

4.8 more than in 2001.

• Romania is one of the five countries in the EU-27 that did not reduce the number of fatalities between 2001 and 2006.

Romania performance compared to other European countries

Number of deaths per million inhabitants

Romania performance compared to other European countries

Reduction of road fatalities 2001/2006

Countermeasures

Solutions in 3 areas:

• In 2003 the EU adopted its third road safety action plan , designed to encourage road users to

• improve their behaviour,

• make vehicles safer and

• improve road infrastructure.

Road users’ behaviour and Vehicle Safety

• Education: Major factors in accidents including driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs; inattentive driving; poor driving skills, etc.

• Enforcement: Enforcement of traffic rules means making sure that they are being applied.

• Vehicle Safety: Special safety features have been built into cars for years, some for the safety of car's occupants only, some for the safety of others.

Infrastructure safety

• Besides the vehicle and the driver, infrastructure is the third pillar of any comprehensive road safety work.

• Road infrastructure and design are a contributing factor in one out of three fatal accidents.

• Major advancements made in the past few years regarding user’s behaviour and safer cares are unmatched by advancements in infrastructure standards.

Infrastructure safety: Directive Proposal COM (2006) 569

In order to increase safety of road infrastructures, the Commission proposed a comprehensive system of road infrastructure safety management through a directive focussing on the following four procedures:

•Road safety impact assessments

•Road safety audits

•Network safety management

•Safety inspections

Treatment of high risk sites

• It is important for Member States to develop and implement in due course high and verified standards of road safety management in line with the EU directive…

• …but this must in no way delay the early identification and treatment of the worst high risk sites with means that are available.

• Identifying high risk sites: Probably most important part of the work! Requires careful observation and investigation and should be science based (gathering accident records/data)

What is a high risk site?

Chernobyl Meltdown 1986

But also….

What is a high risk site?

…this is a high risk site too!!!!

Why?

•Dangerous roadside objects (trees) but no crash barriers

•Narrow single carriage way with opposite flows of traffic but no separate lane marking

•Poor visibility

•No preventive sign

The Roads to Respect Programme (R2R)

The Roads to Respect: a programme for the treatment of High

Risk Sites in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece,

Romania, Slovenia and Serbia

Roads to Respect (R2R)

• The Roads to Respect (R2R) programme aims at treating high risk sites where systematic accidents occur

• High risk site treatment should be based on engineering and… politics!

• Road safety policy should always be based on science

Roads to respect (R2R)

• Death and injury prevention is not necessarily expensive or complex, the R2R programme wishes to promote simple, low cost engineering measures, that can significantly and quickly reduce routine accidents.

• Students to identify a high risk site and campaign/lobby local authorities for its treatment

• The programme will run in seven countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia)

Low Cost Measures

• Low-cost road and traffic engineering measures comprise physical measures that:

1. Have low capital cost,2. Can be implemented quickly, and 3. Offer high ratios of benefit to cost.

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

Before: only one signal

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

...signal obscured

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

After: overhead signal installed!

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

Before: deteriorated ‘Give Way’ line markings

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

After: reinstatement of ‘give way’ markings

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

Before: vehicle/pedestrian conflict

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

After: pedestrian fencing installed

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

Before - Notre Dame (Paris): vehicle/pedestrian conflict

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

…pedestrians distracted

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

After: vehicle access restricted

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

Before: dangerous merge

Examples of high risk sites with simple treatment:

After: lane separators installed

Also…

• Installing a roundabout, if well-designed is always a good solution at dangerous / busy intersections…

Roads to Respect 2007

• A pilot R2R project was run in 2007 in Italy, Spain, and Poland with positive results

• 19 engineering students attended the R2R Camp in Brussels and campaigned for the treatment of High Risk Sites in their own cities

• Some participants managed to reach their goal while others used R2R to meet public authorities and enterprises. Even some participants had great marks in faculty papers thanks to R2R!!!

Exemples of 2007 projects

The Use of ICT for Improving Road Safety Conditions, Biaggio Cuffio

(Italy) :Goal: Implementing an automatic system capable of detecting traffic conditions around one of the black spots existing in the Campania Region Transportation System and to inform, by means of a VMS (Variable Message Sign), the oncoming vehicles.

This project was accepted by the Municipality of Napoli!!!

Exemples of 2007 projects

Calculate traffic lights transition phases in dangerous junction, Mario Romero (Spain)

Goal: programming the traffic lights controller in order to increase the time between the end of pedestrian green light and the beginning of the vehicles green light.

This project reached its goal and is the basis of a research project in the University of Valencia!!!

Exemples of 2007 projects

Increase safety conditions in a cyclist path, Małgorzata Jedynak (Poland)

Goal: Build and isolated bidirectional cyclist path and improve other safety conditions.

The cyclist path is currently being built and Malgorzata is helping the designer!!!

R2R partcipants 2007

You should tell the students that it’s quite necessary to have a risk site to treat with info already collected before the camp

Learning the role that lobbying play was very interesting and useful.

Every lecture gave me something different. Group exercises really helped.

BUT

I just want to say thanks because I understand that road safety is my future job, and I hope to work in it all my life.

R2R partcipants 2007

I discovered a group of friends and specially many professional people.

The visits to the EU Parliament and the field trip were simply great!

How to participate in R2R?

• Apply online: www.etsc.be/R2R.php

• Before 30/06/2008

• Ideally: initial idea of a high risk site to treat

Application form

Roads to Respect Camp

• In order to learn about the identification of high risk sites and the politics behind their treatment, (how to carry effective campaigning and lobbying), 20 students will be invited to Brussels for the R2R training camp on September 2008.

• !!!free of charge!!! (travel, accommodation and daily allowance covered)

• Minimum understanding of English necessary

Roads to Respect Campaign

• Students return to their home country and try to apply their newly acquired skills to convince their local politicians or local administration to fix the accident black spot that they have identified

• ETSC gives support to the students during the whole campaign

Roads to Respect Award Ceremony

• A ceremony is organized in Brussels to award the students most involved in the R2R project

• Prizes are decided by a group of independent experts on road safety according to objective indicators

Roads to Respect Contact

•For further information contact:daniel.ugarte@etsc.begabriel.simcic@etsc.be

Roads to Respect 2008

Apply online www.etsc.be/R2R.php

Thanks...

• ETSC wants to thank the kind cooperation from Iustina Diaconu and GRSP- Romania in the organization of Roads to Respect 2008