The PROMETHEUS Safety Group to which the authors belonged, set itself the task of finding more specific information about possible potential traffic dangers connected to new electronic vehicle equipment. The accident data on hand alone do not provide an adequate basis for such an assessment of new Road transport informatics (RTI) equipment. New equipment does not yet have a history. Systematised experiences with respect to accidents do not exist. Therefore, other assessment methods, for example conflict registrations, behaviour observations and surveys to investigate the background to problematic traffic incidents have to be analysed. In this report, it is shown, how such methods are used in the traffic safety areas and what problems they reflect. These problems should actually be tackled with the help of new equipment. (it should not be the other way round - that an equipment is developed first, and that then problems it could solve are looked for). The results of the present work constitute a Safety Priority Catalogue. With its help those types of behaviour and factors which are assumed to contribute to traffic safety problems can be purposefully selected, and adequate counter-strategies (like, for example, more systematic use of RTI) can be developed. In the analysis of the literature attention was strongly drawn to the interaction between road-users as well as to the underlying motives for different types of behaviour. Knowledge of these should make it easier to understand where possible RTI may have positive effects, no effects, or perhaps even unwanted effects. At the end, assessments of different investigation methods in traffic science concerning their possibilities to give information about safety, security, social acceptability, comfort and sustainability in traffic and about the character of behaviour and interaction between road-users are presented.
Abstract