Vision Zero for Sustainable Road Safety in Baltic Sea Region

Analysis of eye movements of young drivers travelling in an urban environment on two-lane dual carriageway roads, as they approach intersections, was performed with accent on responses to pavement markings. Preview distances of 35–70 m and 70–180 m were evaluated. In each case, the visual region was divided into three sections: centre – view ahead, horizontal line markings, and other areas. Horizontal road signalisation was observed seldom, by only 18–24% test participants, and mostly at the level of gazes, which suggests that the markings are used as a confirmation of other visual cues needed to properly position the vehicle. Measured were dissimilarities between different intersections: gazes from larger distance prevailed in cases of broad roadways, while the opposite was measured with smaller crossings. Fixations on horizontal markings were recorded rarely, but if they occurred, they were rather long: 0.18 s, as compared to 0.24–0.30 s for other visual regions. The gazes were recorded less frequently amongst experienced drivers, but if they occurred their number was not influenced by the drivers’ experience or sex.

To meet the principles of the European Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management, Germany has established the Safety Analysis of Road Networks. With this reactive method, the safety of the road network in operation can be evaluated. Aim of the analysis is to get an overview of the traffic safety of the road network and to identify road sections which feature a high potential to improve traffic safety. An improvement of the infrastructure in these sections is supposed to be especially important and also cost-effective. In which way the redesign of the infrastructure can improve traffic safety of a section is not part of the analysis, but has to be investigated more in detail [1].

For that purpose, the road network to be analysed has to be divided into comparable sections. The German Recommendations for the Safety Analysis of Road Networks (ESN) offer two options for section development: either by accident structure or network structure [2]. A third option is the so-called integral method, which is not included in the guidelines, though [3].

After determining the sections, a so-called safety potential is calculated for each section. It is defined as the accident costs per kilometre, which could be prevented by a road design in accordance with the relevant guidelines. After the calculation, the sections can be ranked by their safety potential. The sections with the highest safety potentials should be investigated more in detail, e.g. by an extensive analysis of the accident data [2].

Aim of the paper is to discuss advantages and disadvantages of the different options of section development and to compare the German approach with other approaches.

From all traffic accidents the accidents with fatalities and with heavy injuries are of the most concern of traffic safety authorities. Although a reasonable decline rate in road fatalities has been achieved, Latvia still is among the countries in European Union with the highest number of road deaths per number of inhabitants. Traffic safety research in Latvia for a range of years has been constrained by limited access to road accident documents by researchers due to legal reasons. The current research lead by Ministry of Transport coordinated researchers from State Police and State Forensic Science Bureau who had full access to road traffic accident documentation, Road Traffic Safety Directorate managing the statistics data, Latvian State Roads having expertise in road infrastructure safety assessment and Riga Technical University having skills in traffic safety research to analyze all road accidents with fatalities and heavy injuries in Riga region in 2016. Along with descriptive statistics data the research revealed the causes of the high percentage of vulnerable road users among the fatalities and heavily injured, problems with pedestrian crossings and other road infrastructure, certain road user behavioral problems and shortcomings in regular data collection for road traffic safety analysis. The findings will help to fulfill the goals of reducing the numbers of fatalities and heavily injured on roads and have clarified the course for future traffic safety research in Latvia.

According to the Directive 2008/96/EC of the European Parliament and Council: “Member States shall ensure that road safety audits are carried out for all infrastructure projects”. While the directive also lists certain criteria for training, the precise training curricula are given into the responsibility of the member states. As a result, the curricula and the organizations offering the training differ between the member states. While in some states, the responsible ministry organizes the training, others rely on private institutions or professional organizations.

This contribution discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the German model of the training of Road Safety Auditors where the execution of training courses for auditors is carried out by a cooperation of German Universities. An expert committee at the Road and Transportation Research Association develops guidelines for the training curricula.

Specialists of different fields (from traffic management and control to logistics) are interested in the market of autonomous cars development. This could give a synergistic effect, because it can improve reliability, safety, efficiency and sustainability of the transport system. However, intellectualization of the transport system requires solving problems that arise (here, under the intellectualization we understand the process of transforming the transport system into the Intelligent Transport System). We propose the classification of risks that will arise while transport system’s intellectualization. Classifier is made in accordance with risk characteristics that will allow directing efforts to prevent the most probable risks, as well as to reduce their severity in case of occurrence. We also suggest software based on a multiple-factor analysis of information that identifies the causes of critical situations. We have modified Haddon matrix, which allows determining factors that affect the number of accidents and the severity of their consequences, as well as the measures most effectively contributing to improving road safety. If recommendations’ implementation caused increase of road safety, the proposed software enters these scripts into the knowledge base. This has allowed us to conclude what actions have helped to increase road safety in the city and what have to be corrected. If recommended decisions haven’t had an expected positive effect, Haddon matrix was revised and adjusted in accordance with the actual results.

Vehicle congestion and high risk of accidents result in disappointment of many drivers and public transport users, causing psychological tension and increasing the accident rate. The accident rate is one of key indicators that help measuring processes of the transport system and its development. With the help of various road safety solutions, the modern world aims to ensure safe transportation and achieve reduction in the number of traffic accidents. Lithuania is focusing on these issues as well. Reduction in the number of traffic accidents requires implementation of the national road traffic safety policy. Traffic safety on the roads of national significance in Lithuania is one of the most important priorities. The success of reducing the number of victims in road accidents lies in mutual understanding, respect, cultured behaviour, closer cooperation between traffic members, as well as installation of engineering safety measures and application of advanced technologies. In order to properly evaluate the impact of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) on traffic safety, the article presents a comprehensive statistical analysis on traffic accidents, ITS applications on Lithuanian roads, measures to minimize accident levels by deploying Intelligent transport systems.

Dangerous goods are a specific part of all goods. About 50% of cargoes are considered dangerous when they are transported in the Republic of Lithuania. Anyone transporting or storing dangerous goods must solve two additional problems: choose the mode of transport and reduce the risk of accidents and the potential damage to people and the environment during transport.

Carrying goods by road involves the risk of traffic accidents Dangerous goods that are transported or stored incorrectly can cause human or animal disease, poisoning, burns, as well as explosion, fire, damage to other cargo, rolling stock, structures and equipment, contamination of the environment and water.

This article analyzes accidents and incidents of dangerous goods transportation by road transport. There are presented the research results indicating the way the respondents estimate the main factors related to risk in road transport, there is provided analysis thereof. The main causes for traffic accidents incurred by enterprises and factors determining route selection are presented. Recommendation measures for reduction of accidents in road transport while transporting dangerous goods are presented.

This article has the aim to investigate the spatial distribution of animal-vehicle collisions (AVCs) in Poland on national roads and motorways. Besides identifying hot spot locations of animal mortality within the country, it also researches on regional scale the relationship between levels of traffic volume or traffic speed and the amount of AVCs. The analysis involves data collected by the Polish General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways with 2014 until 2017 as time range. The geospatial analyses are carried out with QGIS. The Małopolska Province has the highest concentration of AVCs in Poland. Results of the analysis on regional level show that traffic speed and traffic volume are both not strongly correlating to the total animal mortality, meaning that higher levels of the parameters do not lead to higher amounts of AVCs. Accidents occur most frequently on road sections with a traffic volume of an average number of 10,000 to 15,000 vehicles per day. The severe accidents with large sized animals, the Big-Four, are occurring most often at road sections with speed limits between 70 and 90 km/h. This work will be continued, which will investigate the influence of the landscape adjacent to the road on a local scale.

Traffic flows can be affected by any changes on the road. Particularly large changes can be caused by traffic accident. Using the discrete traffic flow method, the dynamics of intensive traffic flow on the road was analyzed. As a research object chosen one of intensive road in Vilnius city. There are eight traffic lights in the intensive road, with a 120 s period cycle. On this road, one traffic accident is simulated on a certain road section, which occur at same times, but different traffic accident elimination time. The changes in traffic flow parameters are obtained at different traffic accidents, which almost completely stops the traffic flow, and their removal times. The results of the research are presented as the parameters changes in traffic flow in time and characteristic waypoints. The dynamics of traffic flows is investigated, after eliminating the consequences of the traffic accidents. Setting the time at which the traffic flows up to the start of traffic accidents.

Changing the transportation infrastructure for improving the main characteristics of the transportation flow is the key problem in transportation planning, therefore the main question lies in the ability to plan the change of the main indicators for the long term. In this investigation, an analysis of the city’s population has been performed and the most difficult transportation segment has been identified. During its identification, the main characteristics of the transportation flow have been established. For the evaluation of these characteristics until 2025, an analysis of the available methods of establishing changes in their values has been conducted. During the analysis of the above mentioned methods of evaluation of the change in intensity, based on the method of extrapolation, three scenarios of the development of the transportation system have been identified. It has been established that the most favorable method of controlling the transportation flow in the entrance to the city is the long term control of the traffic system. For the first time, with the help of the authors, based on the investigations of foreign scientists and the mathematical analysis of the changes in intensiveness on the main routes of the given road, the method of graphically choosing the required control plan has been put forward. The effectiveness of said organization scheme of the transportation system has been calculated in the software product Transyt-14 software product, with the analysis of changes in the main characteristics of the transportation flow.

Planned special events (PSE) every year attract many people to one place. After all, increased traffic volume cause congestions and has a negative impact on the economy by decreasing productivity and decreasing the quality of people’s lives. Nevertheless, environmental pollution increases with increasing traffic. The effects of traffic congestion on traffic safety, however are less obvious. Fatal accident risks are less common in traffic jams but the probability of severe rear end crashes is increased. Investigation of real case study in Lithuania has been made and results are discussed in this paper.

For more than 10 years, there has been a decrease in the number of road traffic accidents in Belarus, as well as in the number of fatalities and injuries in them. Compared to 1998, in 2017 the number of fatalities decreased by a factor of 3.1. The positive dynamics was achieved largely due to the adoption of the Road Traffic Safety Concept in 2006. The Concept envisaged the implementation of a set of engineering measures aimed at improving the road infrastructure.

The absolute values associated with the accident rate are of little use when it is necessary to compare several countries. For this purpose, the total number of fatalities in relation to the population size, to the car fleet size, and some other indicators have been applied internationally. Using these indicators, the situation in Belarus does not look optimal. The number of fatalities per 1 million cars in Belarus is higher than in most of the neighboring countries of the EU and significantly higher than in the leading countries in the sphere of road traffic safety, including those which have adopted the Vision Zero policy. At the same time, starting from 2011, the accident rate reduction in Belarus has slowed down. It can be assumed that the accident rate asymptotically approaches the limit in accordance with Smeed’s Law, according to which the fatality rate in road traffic accidents per car fleet unit decreases as motorization increases.

Remaining within the traditional for Belarus engineering activity, which mainly amounts to road maintenance, it is unlikely that road traffic safety will be significantly improved. Based on the analysis of international road traffic safety, as well as taking into account the local specific features, the article discusses measures, the implementation of which will allow to achieve a qualitatively new level of road traffic safety.

Zero fatalities in road transport and overall traffic safety is one of the most important common goals of the society, industry and academia. To achieve this goal, various researches in different fields, from the analysis of the materials and designs to the development of autonomous ground vehicles, are being done. Respectively, vehicle suspension and shock absorbers are essential elements, which significantly contribute to the oscillations of sprung and unsprung masses, also to the handling and braking characteristics of a vehicle, i.e. they affect the safety of the vehicle. Due to this reason, in this work, an experimental research on the condition of the shock absorbers of light vehicles, when applying the original research methodology, is presented. The performed experimental research is based on two stages. Firstly, the condition of the shock absorbers of the researched vehicles was determined by using a shock absorber test stand. Secondly, equipment was installed in the test vehicles, which measures the vertical acceleration values of the vehicle body, when it drives over an obstacle at low velocities. Based on the performed analysis of the experimental results, vertical acceleration values of the sprung masses of vehicles were indicated, which allows to simply and effectively evaluate the condition of the vehicle shock absorber, without a complex investigation of the shock absorber.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the possibilities to predict risky driving behaviour of novice Lithuanian drivers during the first nine months of their independent driving by risky attitudes and intentions to risk assessed before they were licenced to drive.

188 novice drivers participated in a three-wave longitudinal study. They were approached at driving schools in Lithuania in the beginning of driving training and after it and asked to fill in the questionnaire. To assess the risky driving participants were interviewed one year after the end of driving training.

Driving errors correlated with attitudes and intentions only for female drivers. Violations while driving were related to attitudinal variables for both males and females. Violations as well as driving errors could be predicted by attitudes and intentions measured at the same time as behaviour, when variables of other measurements were controlled.

Risky driving of drivers could be better explained by their attitudes and intentions, when they have already gained some driving experience. It might be presumed that driving experience shape risky attitudes and intentions, not vice versa as it was expected by theory.

The largest cities in Europe are improving the public transport systems and primarily focuses on efficiency, safety attractiveness and number of other indicators, because such indicators have a direct impact on passenger satisfaction. The number of travels by public transport is increasing, and it will bring new challenges in the road safety. Existing public transport infrastructure in the biggest Lithuanian cities is no longer able to satisfy increasing passenger traffic volume, therefore traffic accidents involving public transport are also increasing. There is no detailed analysis of traffic accidents in Vilnius public transport subsystem, therefore all possibilities to improve safety in public transport are not exploited. The results of the study should help to identify the main causes of traffic safety accidents and prepare action plan to improve the situation in other Lithuanian cities.

During the research, distracted driving of drivers was selected. The aim of the research was to analyse the links of distracted driving with demographic indicators. To this effect, the behaviour of 1,896 drivers was observed while they were waiting for the green light at signal-controlled intersections in various cities of Lithuania. The analysis of the research results has revealed that the time of the day and such demographic variables as the gender and place of residence have an impact on the relation of drivers with distracted driving. The research results are ambiguous and claim that every second driver observed during the research is engaged in extraneous activity while driving a car. The most commonly encountered extraneous activities are talking on and manipulation of the phone, communication with passengers, and smoking. In addition, other kinds of extraneous activities have been observed, i.e. eating/drinking, checking one’s appearance in the mirror, searching for fallen objects, cleaning the cabin, dozing off, throwing of rubbish through the window, using a computer, and etc. In conclusion, statistically significant dependencies between the types of extraneous activities and the demographic indicators of drivers as well as the time of the day have been determined.

Vibrations and their impact significantly affect dynamic bus parameters. This article mainly focuses on determining the impact of internal and external factors exciting the bus system on comfort. Comfort is defined by amplitudes of vibrations of structural points and values of amplitudes manifesting in the frequency band. Experimental bus research – measurements of vibrations of significant structural bus points – was carried out in the article. Measurements of vibrations of significant structural bus points allow evaluating the dynamic parameters of low-floor buses and their impact on the comfort.

Road network safety ranking procedure and its implementation is not a strictly regulated road safety activity. This is one of the most flexible ways to determine the most effective and beneficious road safety investments. This paper analyses possibilities for implementing road network safety ranking according to the accidents prediction. The application of road network safety ranking procedure enables to prevent road accidents, i.e. to implement a proactive road safety activity. Road accident predictions are made using the empirical Bayes method, which is based on the assumption that in a similar environment with the similar traffic conditions the risk of accidents is similar. In order to implement this method, all roads of national significance of Lithuania were divided into homogeneous road sections and junctions. The homogenous road groups were determined based on 2012‒2016 data of geometrical parameters of the road and traffic volume. Having estimated the predicted number of accidents for each homogenous road section, it is possible to calculate the predicted accident rate for each road. The authors of the paper, have predicted accident rate for the whole road, compiled a map of road safety levels for the trans-European roads in Lithuanian.

Compact class vehicles form a large share of transport in these days’ European cities; therefore the stability of such kind of vehicles is an important issue of road traffic safety. In the article, the results of experimental research on compact class vehicle stability and road holding experimentally as well as computer modelling are evaluated. A double lane-change manoeuvre is selected for testing (ISO 3888-2). The information obtained from sensors was recorded by the “Corrsys-Datron DAS-3” data collecting device and then processed in common time scale upon applying “TurboLab” computer program. During the experiment, the vehicle’s lateral acceleration, body oscillations and its rates were measured. The projections of longitudinal and lateral velocities were measured as well. According to the calculation method, the angles of each vehicle’s side-slip were calculated. The vehicle’s lateral acceleration, roll angle and roll rate objectively assess the comfort and freedom of movement of the sprung mass, but the stability of the vehicle is directly represented by the angle of the side slip.

This paper presents the impact of traffic safety Legislation on Traffic safety. The impact of traffic safety legislation on traffic safety. The traffic safety situation does not improve, as you would like. In recent years, various traffic safety regulations and regulations have been adopted. How many documents, rules, requirements, etc. have been imposed since 2013? How these requirements are influenced the traffic safety situation in Lithuania. What effect was given by a specific requirement? Have you evaluated the effect of these documents, rules and requirements? How often traffic safety needs be changed?

Implementation of new urban attraction point usually leads to the changes in the surrounding transport infrastructure, which could impact on the performance of the transport network, impact on environment quality etc. Mentioned aspects could be evaluated using microscopic traffic flow simulation tools, which could provide a set of measures to perform the evaluation of the impact. Usually, the impact on safety aspects in a transport network is not evaluated, as it is not requested by the local municipality rules (at least in Latvia). But at the same time, it is an important issue, which has a direct impact on the transport network reliability and safety of drivers and pedestrians. The current paper aim is to demonstrate the case-study of microscopic traffic flow simulation model application for evaluating the surrogate safety after introducing the new urban attraction point (shopping mall) and changes in the surrounding transport infrastructure. The paper defines the methodology for evaluating the surrogate safety, based on microscopic traffic flow simulation model and presents the evaluation results of surrogate safety, completed for one of the newly constructed shopping mall in Riga city (Latvia). Based on the obtained data the conclusions about the impact of new urban attraction point are presented.

Decrease of vigilance caused by sleep deprivation affects driving behaviour and results in delay in reaction and loss of vehicle control. This behaviour leads to increase of road accidents. The effect is typical at long commutes and monotonous roads with tedious landscape and is especially noticeable in so called vulnerable diver population groups, namely novice and senior drivers, shift and overtime workers. Prediction of such a behaviour shall contribute to vehicle safety systems through improvement of driver-car interface for prevention of sleepiness at wheel and decrease number of accidents caused this factor, where timely detection of a driver loss of vehicle control is crucial. Current study represents an experimental research on driving simulator with sleep deprived subjects from two age groups (senior, experienced drivers and young, novice drivers) and compares the vehicle control and lateral position ability based on analysis of vehicle lane position, deviation of speed, lane departure time and lane departure area in subject’s two state (fresh, rested state and induced sleep deprived state), while performing a car following task with speed-change cycles.