Urban road safety initiatives : state of the art on existing experiences in The Netherlands. On behalf of the European Community, within the Developing Urban Management and Safety DUMAS project.

The central theme of this contribution is the new direction which the government of The Netherlands has recently taken concerning its approach to road safety. This comes down to achieving a sustainable safe road traffic system in rural as well as urban districts. The most essential, but not the only, pillar in this approach is the bringing about of a sustainable safe road infrastructure. Chapter 2 gives an analytical description of the size, nature, and development of road safety in The Netherlands during recent years. Chapter 3 gives an impression of the organisation and coordination of a road safety policy. Chapter 4 places the developments within the urban infrastructures in an historical perspective. Chapter 5 describes a number of recent and larger-scale evaluation studies. Chapter 6 concludes this contribution with summary conclusions about: 1) the road safety state of affairs and the direction of their development; 2) the police changes necessary and the direction of the new approach; 3) the most important road safety measures and activities together with their estimated effects; and 4) experiences with evaluations and monitoring.