Vision Zero Research Articles

Identifying urban features for vulnerable road user safety in Europe

One of the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to substantially reduce the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic collisions. To this aim, European cities adopted various urban mobility policies, which has led to a heterogeneous number of injuries across Europe. Monitoring the discrepancies in injuries and understanding the most efficient policies are keys to achieve the objectives of Vision Zero, a multi-national road traffic safety project that aims at zero fatalities or serious injuries linked to road traffic. Here, we identify urban features that are determinants of vulnerable road user safety through the analysis of inter-mode collision data across European cities. We first build up a data set of urban road crashes and their participants from 24 cities in 5 European countries, using the widely recommended KSI indicator (killed or seriously injured individuals) as a safety performance metric. Modelling the casualty matrices including road infrastructure characteristics and modal share distribution of the different cities, we observe that cities with the highest rates of walking and cycling modal shares are the safest for the most vulnerable users. Instead, a higher presence of low-speed limited roads seems to only significantly reduce the number of injuries of car occupants. Our results suggest that policies aimed at increasing the modal share of walking and cycling are key to improve road safety for all road users.

Where the Crosswalk Ends: Mapping Crosswalk Coverage via Satellite Imagery in San Francisco

Marked crosswalks are the primary means of safeguarding pedestrian travel at intersections in American cities. In the face of decades-high pedestrian fatalities nationwide, the provision of adequate crosswalks is highly salient. Though, how they are spatially distributed across an entire city, and vary by neighborhood, has drawn little academic scrutiny. Given that, this study utilizes satellite imagery to map the presence of marked crosswalks throughout San Francisco, a dense, walkable city that has struggled to reach its pedestrian-safety goals. For the first time, this allows for a calculation of “crosswalk coverage” for the city as a whole. Manual review of satellite imagery documents that crosswalks are present at 58% of San Francisco’s roughly 6,400 intersections, though they are not evenly distributed across neighborhoods. Both hotspot analysis and comparing crosswalk coverage by Census tracts demonstrates that northern neighborhoods—even outside of the downtown core—maintain higher percentages of intersections with crosswalks than those in the southern half. Intersections exhibit crosswalk “corridor effects,” in that crosswalks often cluster along certain streets, including (but not limited to) commercial areas. In addition, crosswalks in four neighborhoods were analyzed to a deeper extent, including category (e.g., ladder, continental, and standard), condition, and “completeness” or the number of adjacent blocks with a connecting crosswalk. Across these roughly 1,000 intersections, coverage varied from 51% in the Bayview (a historic African American community) to 83% in Pacific Heights (a high-income, majority-white neighborhood). Though these patterns track somewhat with local pedestrian and automobile volumes, crosswalk coverage diverges from these data in many ways, indicating other factors at play in their distribution. Overall, satellite imagery can be used to identify marked crosswalks at scale, evaluate their quality, and probe geographic variation. Armed with such granular data, planners can consider the ways in which crosswalks are present throughout cities—and where notable gaps exist—in their pursuit of Vision Zero goals.

The Importance of Adopting a Safe System Approach—Translation of Principles into Practical Solutions

The 1990s saw the emergence of the Swedish Vision Zero and the Dutch Sustainable Safety philosophies on road safety. At the time, both were considered somewhat radical and ambitious departures from the status quo. The principles that underpinned both the Dutch and Swedish philosophies were combined into an internationalized form, now known more widely as the Safe System. The Safe System came to attention early in the 2000s, when formally adopted by a number of countries committed to preventing severe road trauma. The Safe System defines a new way of thinking about road safety compared with what had commonly been used around the world in the decades before its conception. The Safe System strives to eliminate death and severe injury from the world’s roads. It also underlines the importance of the safe management of kinetic energy and system-based design that seeks to ensure that crashes are prevented or, at worst, crash forces fall within the threshold of human tolerance to severe injury. Once this thinking is embraced by the system designer, new solutions begin to emerge, and existing designs can be seen in a different, more insightful light. The process of transitioning to the ambitious, ethically based philosophy of the Safe System, as a means of addressing the risks of using our roads, has not happened smoothly or quickly. Practitioners have had difficulty in translating the philosophy and principles of the Safe System into practice. It is hoped that by providing examples of the differences in decisions made under Safe System principles when designing and operating roads, large gains will be made toward the lasting elimination of road trauma. A major focus of the discussion is on the Safe System-aligned design of infrastructure, coupled with vehicle operating speeds, while also recognizing the contributions to risk reduction that can come from improved human performance and the evolving safety features and technologies of modern vehicles.

In cars (are we really safest of all?): interior sensing and emotional opacity

ABSTRACT This paper analyses expert and regulatory perspectives on car driver-monitoring systems that measure bodies to infer and react to emotions, fatigue, and attentiveness. Developers of driver-monitoring systems promise increased safety on the road, alongside comfort for cabin occupants through personalisation and automation. The impetus is three-fold, namely: (1) European road safety policy seeks to vastly reduce road deaths using computational surveillance; (2) there is a growing interest around in cabin safety solutions that sense emotion and affective states of drivers and passengers; and (3) autonomous driving trends are changing the nature of interactions between vehicle and driver. Safety led applications are of special interest because they are backed by policy and standards initiatives including the European Union’s Vision Zero policy and the industry led New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP). Informed by 13 interviews with experts working in and around in-cabin sensing technologies, this paper first identifies and explores features of emergent in-cabin profiling through emotional artificial intelligence (AI) and biometric measures. It then examines how in-car sensing should be regulated by analysing data protection laws and the proposed EU AI Act. A deep ambivalence emerged from our participants around the emergence of emotional AI in cars, and how best to regulate these technologies.

A model for Vision Zero implementation in Iran: a grounded theory study.

:Background:Road Traffic injuries (RTIs) are major global health issues, but they have been neglected. RTIs are multi-faceted in nature and, like many injuries, are costly but preventable. Iran has one of the highest rates of deaths due to traffic accidents among middle-income countries. Hence, there is a need for effective and preventive approaches in road safety management. One of the new approaches to road safety is the Vision Zero. The aim of this study was to design a Vision Zero implementation model in Iran.Methods:This present study was conducted using the qualitative grounded theory approach. Purposive, snowball and maximum variety sampling were used to select participants. In-depth interviews were used to collect data. Grounded theory method was used to analyze the data using Corbin and Strauss method.Results:In this study, 19 interviews were conducted with 17 participants. Based on data analysis, a total of 4 main categories and 13 subcategories were obtained. According to the participants, the lead agency was recognized as the core category. Other concepts were categorized as causal conditions, intervening conditions, contextual conditions, action/interaction strategies, and consequences.Conclusions:Establishing a lead agency with inter-organizational coordination through political support and legislation and changing the approach of road safety can be effective in implementing a Vision Zero. Also, improving the safety attitude of the stakeholders and changing their approach through training and advocacy from various organizations related to road safety is effective in creating a lead agency and implementing a vision zero. In addition, in order to implementation of the model, it is very important to pay attention to the economic, political and ethical underlying factors towards human beings.

Vision Zero in the mining industry – a review of the application in Russia and Vietnam

Vision Zero in the mining industry – a review of the application in Russia and Vietnam

Deep Learning applied to Road Accident Detection with Transfer Learning and Synthetic Images

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has driven solutions in diverse areas; one of the most prominent fields is Computer Vision (CV). Accordingly, solutions to effectively detect road accidents can be a game-changer for road safety. The focus is on Vision Zero, i.e., eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. However, when an accident occurs, response time is essential. Several countries have surveillance cameras monitoring the road network. However, real-time monitoring requires a considerable number of people with training and attention. Our solution automates this with AI, using deep learning to train a model to detect potential accidents. The CV method based on binary image classification was used, being images without accidents classified as normal and images with accidents as alarm. The biggest challenge in developing the model was obtaining images of accidents from the analyzed cameras. The solution adopted was to create synthetic images of these rare events. Several architectures of Convolutional Neural Networks were tested, and it was found that the best approach was to use transfer learning. As base models for transfer learning, the best results were EfficientNetB1 and MobileNetV2. The former for its quality in prediction and the latter for its size and execution speed. As a case study, open data images from Finnish road surveillance cameras were used, provided every ten minutes. Finally, it was found that the solution trained with EfficientNetB1 as the base model has a Mean Average Precision (mAP) of 0.89 and a Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) of 0.77. The solution based on MobileNetV2 has an mAP of 0.88 and an MCC of 0.71.

Socio-demographic factors of industrial injuries of railway workers

The article identifies socio-demographic factors of industrial injuries sustained by railway sector workers, as well as the practice of applying the Vision Zero concept aimed at improving road safety. In the process of writing this scientific article, the following methods were used: integration of research data produced in Canada and France, analysis of statistical data of the studies under consideration; comparative analysis of socio-demographic factors of occupational injuries identified in Canada, France, London and Malaysia, comparison with data for Russia; systematic analysis of the practices of applying the Vision Zero concept in the railway transport sector. The results obtained allow us to identify socio-demographic factors that have the strongest impact on occupational injuries in the field of railway transport. Apart from this, the result of this research allows management structures to be able to neutralize or minimize the effect of the identified factors and reduce the number of occupational injuries, including fatal ones. The identified trends make a huge contribution to improving the safety of the railway industry and its development generally.

VISION ZERO – Tools for Safety, Health, and Well-being Management and the Application in the Vietnamese Coal Mining Industry

The Vietnamese mining industry is one of the most dangerous industries in the country. Miningcompanies understand safety and health for sustainable development at the mining sector and the nationallevel. Thus, they have been applying many measures to improve their safety and health managementachievements. Besides technology measures, organizational and personal measures are priorities. At theinternational level, VISION ZERO is a global movement based on the belief that all accidents, diseases,and harm at work are preventable. VISION ZERO develops its Seven Golden Rules to guide leaders,managers, and workers to create a safe and healthy working environment for the well-being of employees.The paper focuses on VISION ZERO, its theoretical aspects, and the application process in the Vietnamesecoal mining companies.

Long-term effects of the German zero tolerance law for novice drivers

IntroductionIn 2007, the German legislature introduced a zero tolerance law (ZTL) for novice drivers to reduce the number of alcohol-related crashes. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the long-term effects of this law on current and former novice drivers.Method: Our approach was threefold: first, we used individual data of police records from 2003-2018 and conducted a cohort analysis to examine how the first cohort affected by the law responded in the long-term. Second, we analyzed the influence of the ZTL on alcohol-related traffic offenses by current novice drivers. Third, we conducted a survey to examine if the acceptance, knowledge, and behavior regarding the ZTL have changed compared to a decade ago.Results: The number of alcohol-related crashes was significantly lower in the first affected cohort than in earlier cohorts. Moreover, current novice drivers had lower levels of alcohol-related crashes and alcohol-related traffic offenses than did novice drivers before the ZTL became effective. The survey showed a high level of acceptance and knowledge in both current and first cohort and a decreased importance of drinking and driving.Conclusion: The ZTL is associated with a long-term increase of traffic safety in Germany. Former novice drivers appear to have retained learned behavior toward drinking and driving. Thus, the ZTL might have an impact on perceived norms resulting in less acceptance of drinking and driving. Changes in society, like lower alcohol consumption and decreased importance of passenger cars among young people, further accelerated these effects.Practical applications: ZTL for novice drivers are an effective way to improve traffic safety. It is associated with a positive effect on traffic safety even when drivers were no longer directly affected by the measure. These findings suggest that policies are an effective tool to improve traffic safety and help towards achieving Vision Zero.

Pedestrian Deaths During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID pandemic provides a natural experiment examining how a 50-60% reduction in pedestrian activity might lead to a reduction in pedestrian deaths. We assessed whether the reduction in pedestrian deaths was proportional to a one-to-one matching presumed in statistics correlating mobility with fatality. The primary analysis examined New York (largest city in US), and the validation analysis examined Toronto (largest city in Canada). We identified pedestrian activity in each location from the Apple Mobility database, normalized to the baseline in January 2020. We calculated monthly pedestrian deaths from the Vision Zero database in each city with baseline data from 3 prior years. We found a large initial reduction in pedestrian deaths during the lockdown in New York that was transient and not statistically significant during the summer and autumn despite sustained reductions in pedestrian activity. Similarly, we found a large initial reduction in pedestrian deaths during the lockdown in Toronto that was transient and not sustained. Together, these data suggest the substantial reductions in pedestrian activity during the COVID pandemic have no simple correlation with pedestrian fatality counts in the same locations. An awareness of this finding emphasizes the role of unmeasured modifiable individual factors beyond pedestrian infrastructure or other structural contributors.

Supporting kids’ active travel during the pandemic: Milwaukee SRTS Program

The Milwaukee Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program, a partnership between the city of Milwaukee Department of Public Works and the Wisconsin Bike Federation continued their commitment to children’s active travel during the COVID-19 pandemic through offering community walks and Black and Latinx neighborhoods to discuss and incorporate preferences for planned infrastructure improvements; urban summer bicycle camps for kids; and support for teachers as SRTS champions. Staff made modifications such as conducting programming outdoors; modifying materials and facilitation methods to support physical distancing; providing face coverings and minimizing touching equipment. The National Center for Safe Routes to School recognized their efforts with the 2021 Vision Zero for Youth Innovation Award.

How fast would you (or should you) drive here? Investigation of relationships between official speed limit, perceived speed limit, and preferred speed

Speed is a critical risk factor, which makes its management the central point of the Vision Zero approach. Driving speed is influenced by speed choice, and in turn by the perception of the road parameters, as well as by the characteristics of drivers. Credible speed limits and self-explaining roads have been suggested as promising countermeasures; however, these rather theoretical concepts have only rarely been operationalized and quantified.The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between speed indicators (official speed limit, perceived speed limit, preferred speed), as well as their differences, and to determine which road and personality characteristics influence them. Compared to previous studies, we introduced several innovative features, including a richer personality dataset based on three different questionnaires, a focus on all three types of roads (urban, rural, transition), and representative data on observed speeds.Using statistical models of the speed indicators, we found that both speed limit belief and speed choice, as well as their differences, are often influenced by the same characteristics. These are mainly more generous road design (higher road class, higher speed limit, and wider road) and the presence of additional elements (vegetation, pavements, and pedestrian crossings). These characteristics may help improve the credibility of speed limits and self-explaining performance.

Less Temptation To Exceed The Speed Limit Or Towards Vision Zero

In 2020 the Lithuanian Government approved traffic safety programme Vision Zero. One of the integral measures applied to improve traffic safety and to reduce the number of road traffic infringements is the development of average speed cameras’ network on state significance roads. It is planned that the network of average speed cameras will cover more than 800 km of state significance road network in Lithuania in 2020-2021. Initially, it was planned to implement these measures only on rural roads. However, taking into consideration the principles of road eligibility for average speed camera installation, some road sections crossing the so-called linear settlements were selected to test the impact of such systems on driving habits as well. It is presumed that from the beginning of exploitation of these systems the reduction in the consequences of severe traffic accidents on the selected most dangerous state significance road sections will be observed.

ANALYSIS OF DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN EXPERIENCE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF ROAD SAFETY

The experience of traffic safety in the USA and European countries is studied, as well as a comparative analysis of road accidents in Ukraine, taking into account building codes in this area, analyzed foreign experience and prerequisites for the formation and implementation of road safety.
 Vision Zero (Zero Mortality) is a Swedish program to increase road safety and reduce road deaths. The basic principle of the program is the inadmissibility of fatal traffic accidents. The main tools of the program:
 Crossroads with circular traffic. Despite the fact that traffic light regulation reduces the number of accidents and increases the capacity of the intersection; roads with a dividing barrier. The solution effectively prevents accidents related to collisions of oncoming vehicles. Construction of dividing barriers has been active in Sweden since 1998; speed limit in settlements up to 30 km / h. Cleaning of areas adjacent to roads. To minimize the consequences of the congress of transport from the road from the surrounding areas were removed dangerous objects: stones and trees, fences. Detailed investigation of fatal accidents. All fatal road accidents are investigated by a special commission. Seat belt reminder. Alcolocks. The technology is designed to reduce the number of cases of drunk driving. Photo radars. Means of control over the established speed limits on roads. Bicycle helmets. All children under the age of 15 are required to wear a helmet when cycling.

Traffic accident severity analysis in Barcelona using a binary probit and CHAID tree

Traffic accidents are still wide causation for fatalities around the globe. The set of alarm for this cause of deaths is still on, since the number of fatalities is still representing an enormous issue and a challenge for most governments. In Barcelona, similar to the rest of the world, traffic accidents are threatening lives and raising the need to lessen the number of both fatalities and severities. This study is conducted to grasp the correlations between different classification factors with accident severities and fatalities. A total of 47,153 traffic accident cases that occurred between 2016 and 2019 are utilized. Then, a binary probit model and Chi-square automatic interaction detector are exploited to grasp the impact of several risk factors. The results confirmed that males and 65 years and older injured persons are more exposed to severe or fatal injuries compared to other categories. Pedestrians and drivers are found to have higher probabilities compared to passengers in being involved in severe or fatal injuries. Weekends, afternoon, night timings all have higher odds of having severe or fatal traffic accidents. The findings of this study can help road authorities in targeting these risk factors to mitigate their impact to achieve Vision Zero.

Evaluation of Vision Zero School Safety Zone Built Environment Interventions in Toronto, Canada: A Pilot Study

Evaluation of Vision Zero School Safety Zone Built Environment Interventions in Toronto, Canada: A Pilot Study

Pilot study to evaluate school safety zone built environment interventions

BackgroundSchool safety zones were created in 2017 under the City of Toronto’s Vision Zero Road Safety Plan. This pilot study examined the effect of built environment interventions on driver speeds,...

Evaluation of the Road Policy in the Light of Vision Zero in Jaworzno, Poland

Vision Zero (VZ) is a systematic approach whose goal is to reduce the fatalities and serious injuries suffered in road accidents to zero, which was first adopted in Sweden in 1997. Besides assessing the policy implementation in the Polish town of Jaworzno, this paper applies VZ as a framework to describe transport policy development in Jaworzno. It concludes, that even without an explicitly defined strategical VZ document, the action taken by city officials in Jaworzno clearly overlaps with VZ, as evidenced in Sweden. Also, strong political commitment, clear leadership and a dynamic approach to adjust the development according to new evidence, show the city of Jaworzno to be a learning institution in its enhancement of road safety and its support of sustainable development.

New Vision Zero Measures with the use of Telematics and Mobility Data

Worldwide, 1.35 million people die every year as a result of road accidents [Status 2018]. More than half of all traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclist, and motorcyclists [1]. To reduce this number, there are many approaches, an effective and sustainable variant is the Vision Zero(VZ). First and foremost, VZ should be seen as a strategy based on an ethical foundation, creating and supporting a totally new perspective on the road safety problem and the approach to solve it. In Germany, the German Road Safety Council (DVR) has pursued the strategy since 2006 and in 2018 the German Parliament has committed to VZ in the coalition agreement [2]. Since the turn of the century, many European countries have been pursuing the vision of zero traffic fatalities. Numerous VZ measures for traffic infrastructure, vehicle safety features and for instruction have been defined, implemented and validated in order to improve traffic safety, but facing new digital technologies as telematics systems and mobility data via smart phone sensors, these measures need to be redefined in order to be smarter, more efficient and cheaper.