The five top issues for describing cyclists’ safety situation are outlined and discussed. ITS issues for environmental adaptation are highlighted. Measures for improving confidence and security, guidance, and getting contact with and/or being localized are suggested.

The following five systems, which were estimated to have high potential to improve the safety of cyclists, are described and evaluated: Blind Spot Detection (BSD), Bicycle to Vehicle communication (B2V), Intersection safety (INS), Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection System + Emergency Braking (PCDS + EBR), and Vulnerable Road User Beacon System (VBS). A forecast for 2030, taking into accounts the estimated accident trends and penetration rates, showed the highest effects from implementation of PCDS + EBR and BSD.

A synthesis of best practice was done to come up with a "best design" of crosswalks used by children. The analysis is based on studies from three sites in Sweden and three in Israel, research results concerning "ideal" interactions, and a review of additional countermeasures as described in the literature. Our presumption is that actual vehicle speeds should be below 20 km/h where children (aged 7 to 12 years) are crossing a street, especially if they are walking unaccompanied by an adult. The results of field studies show that a "best design" to reach this should include a speed-reducing device located before the crosswalk. The optimal distance from such a device to the crosswalk is about 10 m if the speed limit is 30 km/h or lower. For streets with 50 km/h speed limits, a longer distance of 15 to 20 m is needed and, as a complimentary measure, the crosswalk itself should also be elevated. At approaches with two lanes or more, multiple-threat conflicts occur due to vehicles overtaking stopped ones in the adjacent lane. These conflicts are a threat especially to children, as they often are hidden behind the stopped vehicle if it has stopped too close to the crosswalk. To provide a stronger message for alerting drivers to stop and to stop early, and not to overtake a stopped car in an adjacent lane, advanced yield bars or stop lines are needed. For those, a distance to the crosswalk of about 10 m is recommended. To secure travel speeds below 20 km/h, additional measures like camera enforcement of speeds near the crosswalk might be needed. Within a few years, ITS technology may govern speeds at marked crosswalks, and speed-reducing measures will be less needed at that time. However, for the foreseeable future, older vehicles lacking such technology will still be allowed on streets and even in newer vehicles, speed-control systems may be voluntary and possible to switch off. Therefore, we believe that investments into the measures discussed in this paper will have a role to play for decades to come.

Worldwide, pedestrians make up close to half of all motor-vehicle related fatalities but disproportionally little of the research in Information Technologies (IT) in general and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in particular has aimed at pedestrian safety improvements. This paper analyses and compiles three different ways so that IT and ITS can be used in order to improve mobility and safety of pedestrians in urban spaces: (a) for contacting and/or being localized, (b) for guidance (leading/navigating), (c) for alerting or informing of a danger.

The aim is to categorize recent experiences where ITS can improve pedestrians’ mobility and safety so that new ideas based on ITS will be developed. These new ideas will better meet pedestrians’ functional quality needs today as well as in the future in a society with an aging population and aging infrastructure. This is very important for a society where people will not accept high fatality risks. The most important developments are described with links to websites in which one can gather more information.

Target groups of this paper are professionals working in the field of traffic planning; practitioners, planners and researchers.

Research on the acceptability of assistive systems for improving the safety of powered two-wheelers (PTWs) is a pressing issue. The use of safety-enhancing assistive systems for motorised vehicles, including advanced driver assistance systems and in-vehicle information systems is widespread in many countries. Yet, there is only a limited number of equivalent intelligent transport systems (ITS) for PTWs, namely advanced rider assistance systems and on-bike information systems. This study describes the methodological development of a specific tool for assessing motorcyclists' acceptability of ITS, as part of the motorcyclists' profiling questionnaire (MOPROQ). There were three stages of development. First, a literature review was undertaken to assess the current state of the art regarding ITS for PTWs and to determine the most relevant facets of acceptability that should be measured. Second, a series of focus group interviews were conducted to explore riders' attitudes towards ITS. Finally, the focus group results were used to develop a large-scale survey (MOPROQ), which was administered to an initial sample of over 6000 riders internationally. The designed tool can be used as a basis for the determination of rider acceptability of ITS systems in the future.

Our cities should be designed to accommodate everybody, including children. We will not move towards a more sustainable society unless we accept that children are people with transportation needs, and ‘bussing’ them around, or providing parental limousine services at all times, will not lead to sustainability. Rather, we will need to make our cities walkable for children, at least those above a certain age. Safety has two main aspects, traffic safety and personal safety (risk of assault). Besides being safe, children will also need an urban environment with reasonable mobility, where they themselves can reach destinations with reasonable effort; else they will still need to be driven. This paper presents the results of two expert questionnaires focusing on the potential safety and mobility benefits to child pedestrians of targeted types of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Five different types of functional requests for children were identified based on previous work. The first expert questionnaire was structured to collect expert opinions on which ITS solutions or devices would be, and why, the most relevant ones to satisfy the five different functional requests of child pedestrians. Based on the first questionnaire, fifteen problem areas were defined. In the second questionnaire, the experts ranked the fifteen areas, and prioritized related ITS services, according to their potential for developing ITS services beneficial to children. Several ITS systems for improving pedestrian quality are discussed. ITS services can be used when a pedestrian route takes them to a dangerous street, dangerous crossing point or through a dangerous neighbourhood. An improvement of safety and other qualities would lead to increased mobility and a more sustainable way of living. Children would learn how to live to support their own health and a sustainable city environment. But it will be up to national, regional and local governments, through their ministries and agencies and public works departments, to promote, fund, and possibly mandate such systems. It is clear that we need to offer an acceptable level of convenience, efficiency, comfort, safety and security to pedestrians but it is less clear if society will prioritize resources towards this.

This paper presents the results on two expert questionnaires focusing on the potential safety and mobility benefits to child pedestrians from targeted types of ITS. Questionnaire one was answered by 14 European experts and six North American experts and questionnaire two by 15 European experts, six North American experts and two Israeli experts. Five different types of functional requests for children were identified based on work done within the framework of the European Pedestrian Quality Need project. The first expert questionnaire was structured to collect expert opinions on which ITS solutions or devices would be, and why, the most relevant ones to satisfy the five different functional requests of child pedestrians. Based on the first questionnaire, fifteen areas of interest (problem areas) were defined. In the second questionnaire, the experts ranked the fifteen areas, and prioritized related ITS services, according to their potential for developing ITS services beneficial to children. The ranking is meant to be used as background information to plan research and actions to reach the target for EU set by the European Transport Safety Council, ETSC 2009, that EU see a 60% reduction in child fatalities in traffic between 2010 and 2020 (compared to a 40% overall reduction in fatalities).

The development of assistive systems and intelligent transport systems (ITS) plays an important role for improving the safety of powered two-wheelers (PTWs). Assistive systems for cars are well known and increasingly popular but for PTW riders the development of Advanced Rider Assistance Systems (ARAS) and On-Bike Information Systems (OBIS) has not progressed far enough yet. Estimates suggest that population-wide deployment of ARAS could reduce crashes by up to 40% (Lenné et al., 2011). Within the 2BESAFE project the factors that affect the acceptance of ARAS and OBIS of PTW riders and the obstacles that may hold PTW riders off from the use of assistive systems have been identified. A literature review, focus group interviews and an online survey have been conducted. The results show that the acceptability of systems depends on their function. The acceptability is higher for systems that were perceived to be more useful in emergencies. Survey respondents raised several concerns regarding the acceptance of assistive systems for PTWs. Respondents of the on-line survey felt that there was too much focus on assistive systems as a means of improving PTW rider safety, and less on the dangers that motorcyclists face actually from the actions of other road users.

Speed humps are a common physical measure installed at pedestrian crossings to reduce vehicle speeds therefore improve the safety and mobility of pedestrians at the crossing. The aim of this study was to determine whether variations in distance between speed humps and pedestrian crossings contribute differently to the safety and mobility of pedestrians and cyclists, especially children and the elderly, and if so, how. Three sites in Sweden were studied, where vehicle speed measurements and video filming at the site resulted in manually coded, road user behaviour of 1972 pedestrians and cyclists. Road user behaviour at three test sites and two comparison sites equipped with speed cushion at distances of about 5 m and 10 m from the pedestrian crossing, i.e. about one or two car lengths, were studied. As vehicle speeds were somewhat lower at the pedestrian crossing when the distance between the speed cushion to the pedestrian crossing was greater, and there were positive aspects regarding the mobility of the pedestrians and cyclists, a greater distance of about 10 m or two car lengths between the hump and the pedestrian crossing is suggested. The present study only covers speed cushions, but the same distance is also regarded as important when installing other types of physical measures to reduce vehicle speed.