This report presents a review of the current safety situation of vulnerable road users in OECD Member countries. Industrialised societies are aware of the environmental problems generated by motorised traffic in cities and encourage the development of non-motorised traffic in order to improve living conditions for both road users and urban residents. This aim cannot be reached unless safety conditions cease to be a deterrent to walking and cycling. The study was started in 1995 by a Scientific Expert Groups of the OECD Road Transport Research Programme. Based on a problem-oriented approach, the report sets the main safety problems faced by vulnerable road users taking full account of their social, regulatory and physical environments. It provides an overview of their mobility patterns and accident characteristics based on available travel surveys and national statistics. The challenges to improve the safety situation of vulnerable road users lie with a better understanding of their accident patterns. To this end more detailed research analyses are used to identify well adapted accident countermeasures. The review of current experience in policies aiming at the protection of vulnerable road users takes into account recent evaluation results of some safety measures which although not entirely new, tend to get more and more widely used. Problems that still call for adequate remedial solutions are the basis for exploring prospective measures. The report consists of the following chapters: Chapter I - Introduction; Chapter II - Characteristics and environment of vulnerable road users; Chapter III - Mobility of vulnerable road users; Chapter IV - Safety of vulnerable road users: an overview; Chapter V - Identification of accident factors; Chapter VI - non-infrastructural safety measures; Chapter VII - Infrastructural safety measures; Chapter VIII - Implementation requirements; Chapter IX - Conclusions, policy recommendations and research needs. A Glossary is provided in Annex A and a summary of the travel surveys used to identify mobility patterns is presented in Annex B. The report provides directions for concrete actions to ensure full interaction between the various road users' groups through a better integration of the vulnerable groups in the existing traffic and transport system. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting