Safer To School

Initiative details

Main challanges are to provide Self-Explaining road design around Schools and School areas and where Children walk to School. therefore drivers tend to slow down and become more attentive in traffic, also maximun speeds (Vmax) are much lower.
Consequently Children are more safe going to School and around School areas, drivers drives more safe and with that walkability and using of sustainable transport (public, bikes...) increased.

Initiative date

Who was/is your target audience?

Policy makers
Public authorities
Children 0-16
Car drivers
Cyclists
Pedestrians

Topic

Create awareness
Improve vehicles and infrastructure
Knowledge building and sharing
Provide alternative solutions

Project activities

If you work together with external partners, list the most important partners and briefly describe their role.

At the beginning (when starting with the pilot projects and producing the guidelines) we collaborated with Human Factors (traffic psychologist) experts domestic and foreign, and wider consultation with different traffic experts (also domestic and foreign). We mainly used connection from different experts using the acquaintances in Road safety working group in World Road Association - PIARC.
lately we are collaborating with Transport Community as they have translated the guidelines in several (7) Western Balkans languages.

Please describe the project activities you carried/are carrying out and the time period over which these were implemented.

First we started with 2 pilot projects (on Municipality and on State roads), carried out a monitoring / evaluation (before/after study) to confirm the theses regarding speed reduction and drivers awarness / attention in traffic. After confirming the theses we produced a guidlines "Safer to School" and started with promotion and wider applications around Schools on state roads in Republic of Slovenia, and we are still doing it, and on local roads Municipalities are implementing the solutions as well.

In terms of implementation, what worked well and what challenges did you need to overcome?

The colorful road design worked well and it has positive effect on drivers, also people recognize the meaning of it and accept the solutions. Challenges that are still present and needs more addressing are proper professional education of design (traffic) engineers, so that they can use human factors knowledge in road design, and also sufficient supervision of implementation (construction) so that proper materials are installed...

Evaluation

Please summarise how you have evaluated the initiative’s impact (e.g. social media reach, survey, feedback forms, statistics).

Initiative on social network (LinkedIn and X) is growing, also with help od promotion via Transport Community in Western Balkans (still in progress):
https://www.transport-community.org/news/safer-to-school-guidelines-to-enhance-road-safety-around-educational-institutions-in-albania/
https://www.transport-community.org/news/safer-to-school-guidelines-offer-measures-to-enhance-road-safety-in-school-zones-in-kosovo/
https://www.transport-community.org/news/safer-to-school-guidelines-to-help-enhancement-of-road-safety-around-educational-institutions-in-montenegro/
Lately we also made several videos for YT channels (they will be soon also available in Eng. language):
https://youtu.be/4R3llOv-ETI?si=P5LGbeZx1lmpOjXJ
https://youtu.be/F_bwVZq0RPg?si=OViyzZaIFwsWfdZT
https://youtu.be/DiO5FnM5ToM?si=pkB43TqwB4YlhJou
https://youtu.be/mw5DXeZZBlc?si=6KhAO-aDfoqe1LFR
https://youtu.be/rrh7Ct2T2JY?si=nGDd9L5tEhIoF25u
https://youtu.be/KL-RjNNtE5o?si=esFYdHii1_nNoU3I

What has been the effect of the activities?

The solution is recognized as Traffic calming measure and it is widly accepted among road authorities (state and local) and among road users... Therefore the activities are still ongoing and more and more School areas are equiped using the guidlines... The solution is now also shared in Western Balkans, so it has reached across the Slovenain borders...

Please briefly explain why your initiative is a good example of improving road safety.

It is a low to a median cost solution that can be implemented within a short time and has positive effect on driving speed and drivers attention. It can be used in new design sheemes and as well on existing roads, so that roads become more Self-Explaining where Children are present. It can be used anywhere as Human factors knowledge is implemented in the solutions.

How have you shared information about your project and its results?

We shared the knowledge thru implementation of solutions on roads, via social media and presented papers on conferences and presentations to expert and interested public community.