It is a challenge to develop effective measures for improving road safety – especially when resources are scarce and economic means are limited. Nevertheless, a major target for European policy as well for as for national, regional and local decision makers is to improve road safety significantly, within these limitations. To improve road safety is not an end in itself – it is an urgent social task. In the year 2002 about 50.0001 persons were killed in accidents on European roads. In general economic terms the economic loss is very great; for example in Germany it amounts to over 30 billion Euro per year. In order to help meet this challenge, ROSEBUD was funded by the European Commission as a thematic network to support users at all levels of government (European Union, national, regional, local) with information about road safety related efficiency assessment solutions. To this end, ROSEBUD brought together researchers, policy makers, decision makers and other relevant stakeholders into a co-operative network. The European Union has the objective of halving the number of deaths on European roads by 2010. To achieve this it will be necessary to implement a range of effective road safety measures to the fullest extent. Reliable knowledge about the effectiveness of road safety measures is a prerequisite for this task. Efficiency assessment is a vital tool which should help policy-makers to set more effective priorities for road safety measures, and hence lead to a considerable reduction of accidents. (Author/publisher) For the official ROSEBUD website see http://partnet.vtt.fi/rosebud/
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