The Swedish road safety initiative Vision Zero is described. The Swedish Government set a target to reduce the number of people killed on Swedish roads by 50% in 10 years. The Government did not allocate any extra money to achieve the target. The Vision Zero initiative focuses on reducing the number of fatalities rather than the number of accidents and shifts the responsibility for accidents from road users towards system designers. A demonstration project implemented in Trollhaettan, home town to the Saab car manufacture, has cars with seatbelt reminder systems, an alcohol interlock and an intelligent speed adaptation system, which is based on the global positioning system (GPS) position of the car. There is corporation between the town municipality, the road administration, the police and Saab. The project aims to demonstrate that with current knowledge and technology, the risk of fatalities and severe injuries can be reduced by 90%. On a larger scale, middle barriers are being put up on ordinary through roads and many side barriers are in position. Traffic calming measures are widely used.
Abstract