Road Transport Safety & Security

The aim of the Working Group is to contribute to the Strategic Research Agenda and the research roadmaps, covering all enabling research activities to improve road safety considering the vehicle, the infrastructure and the behaviour of drivers and other road users.

All different types of safety (cooperative-preventive-active, passive and postcrash) are considered, within an integrated approach. Improvements in the security of freight transport and of communication based vehicle functions will be enabled by the research identified on both the infrastructure and the vehicle.

The challenge is to continuously improve safety & security in the road transport sector through an integrated approach covering accidentology, preventive and protective safety, cooperative systems, and emergency management. This approach will extend the focus of road transport safety beyond the vehicle itself to include the way in which the driver perceives information.

The ERTRAC working group on road safety was actively cooperating with the PROS project on priorities for road safety research in Europe.

In 2017, the WG contributed to the new ERTRAC Strategic Research Agenda for Horizon Europe (FP9), delivering the chapter 5, which is specific on Road Safety and Security This indicates that, for ERTRAC, Road Safety is a specific important challenge requiring particular R&I efforts.

In 2018, the Working Group did a complete update of its Roadmap, finalised and published early 2019.

In 2021, taking stock of the most recent European research projects in the field, the Working Group did again a complete review and update of its Roadmap, published in 2021.

Based on this Roadmap, the ERTRAC Safety Paper 2023 highlights specific R&I needs and recommends them for inclusion in the “Climate, Energy and Mobility” Work Programme 2025.