The DUMAS project was commissioned in 1997 by the European Commission in order to consider current practice in Urban Safety Management and to establish frameworks for the design and evaluation of cost-effective and successful urban safety initiatives. Its third phase (1999-2000) aimed to involve towns and cities in the 9 partner countries of DUMAS, where safety initiatives had been or were being implemented. The German study was developed by a private office for transport and town planning (BSV, Aachen/ Germany) at the request of the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt). Its aim was to analyse and to document the traffic safety work in all primary facets. The study was finished in April 2000. As all East German cities after the German Unification, Cottbus had to cope with a rapidly increasing amount of cars, motorisation and its consequences for road safety. In this context, as one of the largest East German cities, having ahout 108,000 inhahitants, Cottbus provides some appropriate examples of how to improve road safety. Measures found to be successful: (1) Bundling motor vehicle traffic on a few high performance roads, based on a double ring system; (2) Pedestrian-friendly downtown district with both a central tram and a central bus stop; (3) Area-wide 30 km/h-zones in the downtown district and residential areas; (4) Consistent improvement of the tram system as a "backbone" of city traffic; (5) Traffic surveillance particularly by making use of stationary and mobile (car-stated) "speed traps" with cameras; and (6) Close cooperation between planning and engineering institutions and interest groups on local level. For the covering abstract see ITRD E117761.
Abstract