Initiative details
According to statistics, road accidents are the leading cause of death for young people, especially in the 18-24 age group. This is a good reason to raise awareness and to leverage the young population.
Many young people and young adults represent an interesting target for awareness campaigns. Not only can they help spreading awareness in society right now, but they are also highly exposed to road risks. Moreover, when properly addressed, younger people are open to learn and to change behaviour.
Motorways, Italian Police and City Authorities decided to reach out to young people by creating a project aimed at road safety culture.
The main goal is to widespread safety culture directly to students and young adults. It is also the opportunity to mobilize a huge number of national, regional and local stakeholders.
Impact and scale: The core of the initiative is made out of 40 events in 6 regions and 20 towns. Organizers expect to reach 10.000 to 20.000 people, ideally 15.000. It’s not just an easy tour of lectures in schools. Strategies for medium/long term engagement are put into practice. A concrete assessment of results is being made.
Many young people and young adults represent an interesting target for awareness campaigns. Not only can they help spreading awareness in society right now, but they are also highly exposed to road risks. Moreover, when properly addressed, younger people are open to learn and to change behaviour.
Motorways, Italian Police and City Authorities decided to reach out to young people by creating a project aimed at road safety culture.
The main goal is to widespread safety culture directly to students and young adults. It is also the opportunity to mobilize a huge number of national, regional and local stakeholders.
Impact and scale: The core of the initiative is made out of 40 events in 6 regions and 20 towns. Organizers expect to reach 10.000 to 20.000 people, ideally 15.000. It’s not just an easy tour of lectures in schools. Strategies for medium/long term engagement are put into practice. A concrete assessment of results is being made.
Initiative date
to
Who was/is your target audience?
Policy makers
Public authorities
Children 0-16
Young adults 17-25
Company employees
Educational staff
Emergency services
Topic
Create awareness
Education in school or in community organizations
Knowledge building and sharing
Training
Organisation details
SINA S.p.A.
Enterprise
Italy
MILANO
Contact name
Roberto Arditi
Telephone number
02550591
roberto.arditi@sina.it
Website link
Project activities
Please describe the project activities you carried/are carrying out and the time period over which these were implemented.
Three different age groups are considered. Activities have been devised accordingly:
• Road safety laboratory for students under 11.
• A road safety day, normally in a beautiful Italian square, for students between 11 and 16.
• A road safety talk-show after the movie "Young Europe" (16 to 19 years).
40 events are being organized thanks to the partnership of Authorities ruling 20 towns along motorways operated by partners. 16 of the 40 events already happened in recent months. Despite the huge effort, promoters deem that punctual events are not enough: strategies have been studied to keep students engaged on road safety matters beyond the training days. The following activities are included:
• Two competitions open to students (year 2024 and year 2025) were launched and funded: promoting road safety awareness among students with both economical prizes for schools and experiential prizes for students. The National Ministry of Education has promoted the Competition to all schools concerned
• A permanent facility/centre for training of young people on road safety was built/refurbished with the contribution of two partners of our campaign (SALT motorways and the town of Pontremoli) and inaugurated on May 10th, 2024 when “Andiamo sul sicuro” happened in the Tuscan city of Pontremoli.
• Young leaders of road safety – after the training, students and coordinating teachers are invited to verify if people who are approaching the school are following the road safety rules.
• Students and teachers attending the training are gifted gadgets that are designed to be useful on the medium/long term e.g. notebook including some pages with the key info of the campaign, the backpack and the mousepad without logos but with visuals promoting road safety
Originality point 1: The target audience is not approached like in a classical lesson. Students are clustered in three groups by age. For each cluster there is a specifically designed program. For all the groups, the approach is individual or as interactive as possible, when individual level is not possible. Three different creations for different ages groups:
- There is a “road safety laboratory” for children, using products of the campaign,
- Original “road safety games” designed on purpose contribute to challenge the intermediate age,
- Young adults have the opportunity to watch an interesting “movie” designed to challenge on road safety, listen a “talk-show”. Students accessing the theatre are invited to answers some questions on road safety, real time collected and discussed. Videos of real accidents and testimonials from professionals and victims are always highly considered by the audience.
Originality point 2: Not large-scale events only but strategies to keep students and stakeholders connected to the topic of road safety, giving continuity over the year. From competitions to permanent training facilities were studied and realized.
• Road safety laboratory for students under 11.
• A road safety day, normally in a beautiful Italian square, for students between 11 and 16.
• A road safety talk-show after the movie "Young Europe" (16 to 19 years).
40 events are being organized thanks to the partnership of Authorities ruling 20 towns along motorways operated by partners. 16 of the 40 events already happened in recent months. Despite the huge effort, promoters deem that punctual events are not enough: strategies have been studied to keep students engaged on road safety matters beyond the training days. The following activities are included:
• Two competitions open to students (year 2024 and year 2025) were launched and funded: promoting road safety awareness among students with both economical prizes for schools and experiential prizes for students. The National Ministry of Education has promoted the Competition to all schools concerned
• A permanent facility/centre for training of young people on road safety was built/refurbished with the contribution of two partners of our campaign (SALT motorways and the town of Pontremoli) and inaugurated on May 10th, 2024 when “Andiamo sul sicuro” happened in the Tuscan city of Pontremoli.
• Young leaders of road safety – after the training, students and coordinating teachers are invited to verify if people who are approaching the school are following the road safety rules.
• Students and teachers attending the training are gifted gadgets that are designed to be useful on the medium/long term e.g. notebook including some pages with the key info of the campaign, the backpack and the mousepad without logos but with visuals promoting road safety
Originality point 1: The target audience is not approached like in a classical lesson. Students are clustered in three groups by age. For each cluster there is a specifically designed program. For all the groups, the approach is individual or as interactive as possible, when individual level is not possible. Three different creations for different ages groups:
- There is a “road safety laboratory” for children, using products of the campaign,
- Original “road safety games” designed on purpose contribute to challenge the intermediate age,
- Young adults have the opportunity to watch an interesting “movie” designed to challenge on road safety, listen a “talk-show”. Students accessing the theatre are invited to answers some questions on road safety, real time collected and discussed. Videos of real accidents and testimonials from professionals and victims are always highly considered by the audience.
Originality point 2: Not large-scale events only but strategies to keep students and stakeholders connected to the topic of road safety, giving continuity over the year. From competitions to permanent training facilities were studied and realized.
In terms of implementation, what worked well and what challenges did you need to overcome?
Impact and scale 2: The initiative is a bit less than halfway: 16 of the events are already organized, of a total 40 planned by June 2025. Police and motorways were present with experts and top managers. Top executives of Cities’ governments: 12 times the Mayor was present, 4 times was the Deputy Mayor present, 22 times an executive alderman (assessore) was present, 69 times another authority or notable guest was present: representatives of the national government (prefetto, provveditore, national director, deputy minister), regional government member, heads of police (questore, dirigente), city council president, basketball champion, European association secretary, ministerial officer, UN expert, testimonials. 18 times journalists were present. 50 panelists animated roundtables. 206 trainers and 401 the teachers who accompanied classes helped. An overall of about 6.000 attendees were registered so far. If we continue with this rate, next June we will reach the expected 15.000 presence or more.
Numbers show what worked well.
Organization and logistics for such numbers are challenging. Mistakes, delays, misunderstandings happened. The rotation of trainers is a big opportunity to involve many and diffuse even more the culture of road safety. On the other hand, this rotation is challenging also for the coordination needs. Moreover, the continuous changing of venues/theatres challenges the governing of technicalities. Difficulties were overcome thanks to the enthusiasm of colleagues. For instance, once it happened that planned materials did not arrive. Solution: a colleague spent the night to handcraft an item which turned out even better than the ones purchased. About enthusiasm: often we have additional traffic agents over the planned. Some of them decide to come and contribute to the training sessions even when events happen in their shift off.
Numbers show what worked well.
Organization and logistics for such numbers are challenging. Mistakes, delays, misunderstandings happened. The rotation of trainers is a big opportunity to involve many and diffuse even more the culture of road safety. On the other hand, this rotation is challenging also for the coordination needs. Moreover, the continuous changing of venues/theatres challenges the governing of technicalities. Difficulties were overcome thanks to the enthusiasm of colleagues. For instance, once it happened that planned materials did not arrive. Solution: a colleague spent the night to handcraft an item which turned out even better than the ones purchased. About enthusiasm: often we have additional traffic agents over the planned. Some of them decide to come and contribute to the training sessions even when events happen in their shift off.
If you work together with external partners, list the most important partners and briefly describe their role.
At national level leading partners of the project are the National Italian Police (traffic police service) and SINA, under the umbrella of ASTM, who is responsible for the support and coordination of the team of motorway operators.
A large group of the TEN-T road network are leading and giving continuity of action together with Cities’ Authorities: Asti-Cuneo Motorways, ATIVA Torino ring road and Torino-Quincinetto motorways, Autostrada dei Fiori A10 and A6, Autovia Padana A21, SALT motorways A12 and A15, SATAP motorways, SAV motorways A5, SITAF A32 and Frejus Tunnel, TEM A58 external ring road of Milano, A35 Brebemi of the Aleatica Group.
Authorities from the Towns of Acqui Terme, Aosta, Caravaggio, Carmagnola, Chiari, Chivasso, Imperia, Nizza Monferrato, Pontremoli, Tortona were extremely efficient in local organization affairs (contacts with schools, public space to be used, etc.), communication to the local press and invitation to local institutional partners. Authorities from many other cities, are in the preliminary organisational phase. Among them Albenga, Cremona, Cuneo, Treviglio, Melzo and Mondovì.
Steering groups including members from different partners/authorities are in charge to decide strategies, objectives, awarding prizes to schools. Some hundred schools’ directors, teachers and other stakeholders were already involved in activities.
Originality point 3: The teachers. Traffic Police Officers and Motorways’ Traffic Agents are the true professionals of the road safety. They are people that daily put at risk their own lives to protect the public. In fact, they are daily on the road, to prevent risks and to manage any kind of crisis. According to the number of students to be met, a squad of motorways’ traffic agents in a number from 10 to 15 are selected and subject to an easy training. On the police side, a group of 3 to 5 policemen is normally present to training sessions. Traffic Agents are selected in the staff of operational services of the motorway serving the specific partner town. This kind of approach has several advantages:
- We have the opportunity to deliver to the society the concrete experience on road safety of those people who are daily involved in the process of guaranteeing safety on the roads. People who knows the theory, being specifically trained, but knows facts from the personal experience also.
- To cover the service of the 20 towns planned, organizers expect to have about 400 staff members involved in the service. This number is not a “squad”, but a little “battalion” of teachers that can bring this experience even beyond the 40 planned events.
- Transforming traffic agents into a road safety teacher has a third win-win advantage: looking from the perspective of Traffic Agents, it is an acknowledgment of the professionality of Agents themselves. This fact is also important: the activity on the road is quite dangerous and sometimes Traffic Agents go far beyond the spirit of service, becoming a sort of “heroes” of the road. For instance, students were amazed by the testimonial of a Traffic Agent who stopped a drunk driver running the truck on the wrong way of the motorway.
A large group of the TEN-T road network are leading and giving continuity of action together with Cities’ Authorities: Asti-Cuneo Motorways, ATIVA Torino ring road and Torino-Quincinetto motorways, Autostrada dei Fiori A10 and A6, Autovia Padana A21, SALT motorways A12 and A15, SATAP motorways, SAV motorways A5, SITAF A32 and Frejus Tunnel, TEM A58 external ring road of Milano, A35 Brebemi of the Aleatica Group.
Authorities from the Towns of Acqui Terme, Aosta, Caravaggio, Carmagnola, Chiari, Chivasso, Imperia, Nizza Monferrato, Pontremoli, Tortona were extremely efficient in local organization affairs (contacts with schools, public space to be used, etc.), communication to the local press and invitation to local institutional partners. Authorities from many other cities, are in the preliminary organisational phase. Among them Albenga, Cremona, Cuneo, Treviglio, Melzo and Mondovì.
Steering groups including members from different partners/authorities are in charge to decide strategies, objectives, awarding prizes to schools. Some hundred schools’ directors, teachers and other stakeholders were already involved in activities.
Originality point 3: The teachers. Traffic Police Officers and Motorways’ Traffic Agents are the true professionals of the road safety. They are people that daily put at risk their own lives to protect the public. In fact, they are daily on the road, to prevent risks and to manage any kind of crisis. According to the number of students to be met, a squad of motorways’ traffic agents in a number from 10 to 15 are selected and subject to an easy training. On the police side, a group of 3 to 5 policemen is normally present to training sessions. Traffic Agents are selected in the staff of operational services of the motorway serving the specific partner town. This kind of approach has several advantages:
- We have the opportunity to deliver to the society the concrete experience on road safety of those people who are daily involved in the process of guaranteeing safety on the roads. People who knows the theory, being specifically trained, but knows facts from the personal experience also.
- To cover the service of the 20 towns planned, organizers expect to have about 400 staff members involved in the service. This number is not a “squad”, but a little “battalion” of teachers that can bring this experience even beyond the 40 planned events.
- Transforming traffic agents into a road safety teacher has a third win-win advantage: looking from the perspective of Traffic Agents, it is an acknowledgment of the professionality of Agents themselves. This fact is also important: the activity on the road is quite dangerous and sometimes Traffic Agents go far beyond the spirit of service, becoming a sort of “heroes” of the road. For instance, students were amazed by the testimonial of a Traffic Agent who stopped a drunk driver running the truck on the wrong way of the motorway.
Evaluation
Please summarise how you have evaluated the initiative’s impact (e.g. social media reach, survey, feedback forms, statistics).
Time and resources invested by partners needs to have a concrete payoff in term of safety. Consequently, the impact evaluation was a carefully approached with a plurality of methods at different levels and at different moments of the project.
1. surveys via questionnaires are filled out by participants. In this regard, 4 questionnaires have been prepared and made available to:
2. teachers
3. students attending open air training
4. 2 questionnaires for students attending the theatre event:
a) to estimate the level of knowledge on 8 topics relevant to road safety. Answers pave the debate/talk-show
b) closing questionnaire (some results will be summarized in following 5.1)
Originality point 4: A WebAPP was designed, created and made available for the statistical surveys on behaviours, normally performed by local police. Guidelines for data collection have been drafted: https://sicurezza.sina.co.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/16.-Linee-guida-raccolta-dati-1.pdf
1. surveys via questionnaires are filled out by participants. In this regard, 4 questionnaires have been prepared and made available to:
2. teachers
3. students attending open air training
4. 2 questionnaires for students attending the theatre event:
a) to estimate the level of knowledge on 8 topics relevant to road safety. Answers pave the debate/talk-show
b) closing questionnaire (some results will be summarized in following 5.1)
Originality point 4: A WebAPP was designed, created and made available for the statistical surveys on behaviours, normally performed by local police. Guidelines for data collection have been drafted: https://sicurezza.sina.co.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/16.-Linee-guida-raccolta-dati-1.pdf
What has been the effect of the activities?
Previous paragraphs comment already number people reached, etc. This paragraph is devoted to some examples out the evaluation currently performed. After the movie and the talk-show, questionnaires are proposed to young adults to:
- a) estimate if they got the main message of the training,
- b) have an assessment/feedback from the students on training session
- c) understand how much they are concretely engaged by the training, i.e. how much they are willing to be personally active in safeguarding the road safety.
This process was, so far, adopted in 5 towns: Carmagnola, Chiari, Pontremoli, Tortona, Acqui Terme. About 41% of students filled the final questionnaire, hereinafter some highlights out of the statistics:
- 92,1% of young adults were convinced that road safety is a shared responsibility and the each one of them is demanded to be part of (in different sessions results were ranging from 89,2% of Chiari to 95% of Pontremoli)
- 81% of young adults would recommend a training of this kind to a friend because is useful (45,5% think that is not only useful but also interesting)
- 65,4% declare themselves ready to intervene personally asking others to respect rules grounding the road safety
If these training results could also be confirmed by concrete behaviours on the road, the overall result would be very good.
Communication “Andiamo sul sicuro” results were showcased in ASECAP Days 2024, the European Conference of Motorways, and it is planned to be presented in the National Italian Road safety event and in the Global Forum of Road Safety of UN.
- a) estimate if they got the main message of the training,
- b) have an assessment/feedback from the students on training session
- c) understand how much they are concretely engaged by the training, i.e. how much they are willing to be personally active in safeguarding the road safety.
This process was, so far, adopted in 5 towns: Carmagnola, Chiari, Pontremoli, Tortona, Acqui Terme. About 41% of students filled the final questionnaire, hereinafter some highlights out of the statistics:
- 92,1% of young adults were convinced that road safety is a shared responsibility and the each one of them is demanded to be part of (in different sessions results were ranging from 89,2% of Chiari to 95% of Pontremoli)
- 81% of young adults would recommend a training of this kind to a friend because is useful (45,5% think that is not only useful but also interesting)
- 65,4% declare themselves ready to intervene personally asking others to respect rules grounding the road safety
If these training results could also be confirmed by concrete behaviours on the road, the overall result would be very good.
Communication “Andiamo sul sicuro” results were showcased in ASECAP Days 2024, the European Conference of Motorways, and it is planned to be presented in the National Italian Road safety event and in the Global Forum of Road Safety of UN.
Please briefly explain why your initiative is a good example of improving road safety.
The initiative mobilizes road communication experts of the Police, hundreds of operators from the various motorway concessionaires, hundreds of stakeholders, hundreds of schoolteachers and thousands of students. Some points were highlighted along the overall text and are here recalled as Originality point 1 to 7, Impact and scale 1 and 2, Continuity and growth potential, Communication.
The topics of the campaign are chosen according priorities chosen as follows:
- Immediately useful for each cluster of students
- important for road safety in urban area but useful, in perspective, in motorways also
- selected according priorities coming from national and European statistics and Institutions
Originality point 5: the open/federative approach of this Campaign is one of the points that make unique the initiative in Italy and probably beyond. It is not a campaign connected with a single brand or a single authority. A large number of Motorways, Town Authorities, Police forces are cooperating in a joint effort.
Originality point 6: Partner towns include regional and provincial capitals, but small and medium-sized cities (15.000-50.000 inhabitants) are normally preferred for the following reason: each time we are able to reach the contact with an average of 600-800 students, occasionally up to 1.100. This is significant percentage for the population of small towns, and we can expect that an impact on “collective behaviour” to be unlashed. This is another point that make unique the initiative. Partners Cities belong to 6 Italian regions (Piemonte, Valle d‘Aosta, Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Lombardia, Toscana).
Originality point 7: We propose the follow-up activity of “young leaders” to ensure that students put their own face on road safety promotion, becoming positive agents in the society
The topics of the campaign are chosen according priorities chosen as follows:
- Immediately useful for each cluster of students
- important for road safety in urban area but useful, in perspective, in motorways also
- selected according priorities coming from national and European statistics and Institutions
Originality point 5: the open/federative approach of this Campaign is one of the points that make unique the initiative in Italy and probably beyond. It is not a campaign connected with a single brand or a single authority. A large number of Motorways, Town Authorities, Police forces are cooperating in a joint effort.
Originality point 6: Partner towns include regional and provincial capitals, but small and medium-sized cities (15.000-50.000 inhabitants) are normally preferred for the following reason: each time we are able to reach the contact with an average of 600-800 students, occasionally up to 1.100. This is significant percentage for the population of small towns, and we can expect that an impact on “collective behaviour” to be unlashed. This is another point that make unique the initiative. Partners Cities belong to 6 Italian regions (Piemonte, Valle d‘Aosta, Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Lombardia, Toscana).
Originality point 7: We propose the follow-up activity of “young leaders” to ensure that students put their own face on road safety promotion, becoming positive agents in the society
How have you shared information about your project and its results?
The initiative is quite visible thanks to the many press releases and even some press conferences held by the partners and the administrations of the hosting cities.
The general public was informed of the starting of activities via a joint press release from the Ministry of the Interior, traffic police service, and the ASTM motorways group. The communication of each event is handled with particular attention by the communication services of the hosting cities through press releases, social media and websites. The sites and social media of the Partner Motorways, the sites of the local offices of the State Police (Questure) and the websites of the hosting Cities contribute to the ex-ante and ex-post information on the initiative. This type of visibility allowed us to have, so far, 18 journalists who occasionally decided to attend the training days. Consequently, journalists published news, articles, videos and asked the organizers for interviews. Information on the "Andiamo sul sicuro" initiative was consequently disseminated via television reports, via radio, in print media and on communication sites. The Italian Ministry of Education has disseminated the notice information about the “school competition” on a national scale through the newsletter addressed to school representatives and published an article on the national platform for traffic education (EDUSTRADA). www.autostradafacendo.it/andiamo-sul-sicuro is the hub for coordination of information between the partners. In particular, the base documents for the coordination of the activities have been developed and made public through three categories of interest: a) the State Police and the motorway operating personnel, b) the town authorities partners in the initiative, c) the participating schools. The same site reports some information on events and also a partial review of press releases. Mainstream media have published news in the following networks: RAI, Ansa, LaStampa, LaRepubblica, IlTirreno, LaNazione, QN_Il_resto_del_Carlino, Eco_di_Bergamo, Youtube. Technical media: Ansa.it_motori LeStrade, Inmoto.it. Local press: Acquinews, Aostacronaca.it, Aostainforma.it, Aostanews.it, Bresciaoggi.it, ChiariWeek, CremascoWeek, Dentro_la_notizia_Break, Gazzetta_d'Alba.it, 100torri.it, Gazzetta_matin, Il_Carmagnolese.it, Il_Giornale_di_Brescia, imperiapost.it, gazzettamatin.com, Imprese-Lavoro.com, InPrimaPagina.com, L’Ancora, laprimalinea.it, LaVoce_di_Asti.it, lavocediimperia.it, L'eco_di_Bergamo.com, LeStradeweb.it, MI-Lorenteggio.com, Oggi_Cronaca.it, PrimaBrescia.it, primalariviera.it, QuiBrescia.it, RadioGold.it, RadioVera.net, Rivieratime.news, Settimanalelancora.it, TorinoCronaca.it, TorinoOggi.it, Virgilio.it, Voceapuana.com.
The general public was informed of the starting of activities via a joint press release from the Ministry of the Interior, traffic police service, and the ASTM motorways group. The communication of each event is handled with particular attention by the communication services of the hosting cities through press releases, social media and websites. The sites and social media of the Partner Motorways, the sites of the local offices of the State Police (Questure) and the websites of the hosting Cities contribute to the ex-ante and ex-post information on the initiative. This type of visibility allowed us to have, so far, 18 journalists who occasionally decided to attend the training days. Consequently, journalists published news, articles, videos and asked the organizers for interviews. Information on the "Andiamo sul sicuro" initiative was consequently disseminated via television reports, via radio, in print media and on communication sites. The Italian Ministry of Education has disseminated the notice information about the “school competition” on a national scale through the newsletter addressed to school representatives and published an article on the national platform for traffic education (EDUSTRADA). www.autostradafacendo.it/andiamo-sul-sicuro is the hub for coordination of information between the partners. In particular, the base documents for the coordination of the activities have been developed and made public through three categories of interest: a) the State Police and the motorway operating personnel, b) the town authorities partners in the initiative, c) the participating schools. The same site reports some information on events and also a partial review of press releases. Mainstream media have published news in the following networks: RAI, Ansa, LaStampa, LaRepubblica, IlTirreno, LaNazione, QN_Il_resto_del_Carlino, Eco_di_Bergamo, Youtube. Technical media: Ansa.it_motori LeStrade, Inmoto.it. Local press: Acquinews, Aostacronaca.it, Aostainforma.it, Aostanews.it, Bresciaoggi.it, ChiariWeek, CremascoWeek, Dentro_la_notizia_Break, Gazzetta_d'Alba.it, 100torri.it, Gazzetta_matin, Il_Carmagnolese.it, Il_Giornale_di_Brescia, imperiapost.it, gazzettamatin.com, Imprese-Lavoro.com, InPrimaPagina.com, L’Ancora, laprimalinea.it, LaVoce_di_Asti.it, lavocediimperia.it, L'eco_di_Bergamo.com, LeStradeweb.it, MI-Lorenteggio.com, Oggi_Cronaca.it, PrimaBrescia.it, primalariviera.it, QuiBrescia.it, RadioGold.it, RadioVera.net, Rivieratime.news, Settimanalelancora.it, TorinoCronaca.it, TorinoOggi.it, Virgilio.it, Voceapuana.com.