The primary purpose of this review is to advise European Union (EU) policy makers on which public and private Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) should be encouraged and developed and which should be discouraged or even prevented from a road safety viewpoint. The review is also intended for researchers, industrial representatives, road users, and other interested organisations. This review was conducted to analyse how ITS could contribute to reducing the high costs of road accidents within the EU. Each year, there are over 42,500 fatalities and 3.5M injuries from road accidents in the EU. ITS on roads are based on communication between intelligent roadside and in-vehicle devices and road users, mainly drivers. The primary questions are how to check the safety of ITS devices before they are marketed and what quality control process is appropriate. ITS systems can influence safety directly, for example by incident detection and warning, or indirectly, such as debiting systems and systems giving priority and public transport. The report covers: (1) safety and risk in road traffic; (2) ITS and road user tasks; (3) ITS and traffic exposure; (4) ITS and crash risk; (5) ITS and reduction of accident effects; (6) `office-on-wheels'; (7) safety evaluation of ITS; and (8) implementation issues. Recommendations are made on strategy, specific actions, and research promotion.
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