Presentations at international conference on road safety in Vilnius
On 5th and 6th December, 2018 the international conference "Vision Zero for Sustainable Road Safety in Baltic Sea Region" took place in Vilnius (Lithuania). The conference, in which high-ranking experts and politicians participated, was also attended by the two employees of the Chair of Traffic System Planning, Dipl.-Ing. Julius Uhlmann and MSc Johannes Vogel, who presented findings from traffic safety work.
The conference was organized by the Lithuanian-Swedish Academy and the Vilnius University of Technology (VGTU). The aim was to examine and discuss the Vision Zero (no more road deaths and serious injuries in road traffic) from an international and interdisciplinary perspective. The conference served as a platform for an intensive professional exchange between politicians, authorities, scientists and companies from industry.
In the introductory presentations, the state of the art in Sweden, Norway and Lithuania as well as autonomous driving as a contribution to road safety were discussed. The Vision Zero was then examined and discussed in parallel sessions from different perspectives (policy and implementation, technology and innovation, human factor, urban planning and vulnerable road users).
During one of the sessions, MSc Johannes Vogel presented the safety analysis of road networks how applied in Germany as an instrument of road safety work. In particular, he compared and discussed the various ways in which the existing road network can be divided into reasonable sections in order to calculate traffic safety for these sections on the basis of the so-called safety potential. He emphasized that the choice of sections has a major influence on the results of the safety analysis and pointed out the individual advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches. He also took a look at Norway and the USA and their approach to section development for the safety analysis of road networks.
Dipl.-Ing. Julius Uhlmann explained in a poster presentation the German strategy for the training of road safety auditors. The special features in comparison to other countries are the organization of the training by universities as well as the large amount of time that prospective auditors have to spend on lectures, site visits and exercises. He stressed, however, that this would also guarantee the best possible training for safety auditors at the highest level.
Other interesting topics at the conference included systematic research into arguments against Vision Zero, driving school education for children and truck drivers and the so-called ActiBumps, which are used in Sweden as a tough measure to reduce speed.
The papers submitted for the conference will be published in Springer conference proceedings.