Innovation in road safety education

The National Relays of the European Road Safety Charter came together in February to follow an online workshop on education and training. Three interesting European projects showed how we can make the behaviour of different types of road users more safe in an innovative and fun way. Take a look at the projects below and become inspired!

Do you have any questions concerning these projects? Do not hesitate to contact them!

 

VOI: RideLikeVoila

Voi is a multimodel micromobility provider. In five years’ time, they succeeded in offering e-scooters and e-bikes in more than 100 different cities in 11 countries across Europe. Notwithstanding the growth, the safety of the 6 million users remains a priority for the micromobility provider. They discovered that many of their urban users only had limited road experience and knowledge in the traffic rules before using the e-scooter. This created unsafe behaviour that placed both the safety of the rider and the surrounding road users at risk. Voi therefore introduced RideLikeVoila: an online traffic school where riders can improve their knowledge for free before using an e-scooter. The traffic school contains questions in five different areas:

  1. Traffic rules
  2. Signs and signals
  3. Scooter knowledge
  4. Parking
  5. General information

New users have to complete an onboarding test before they can start their journey with Voi. To ensure the accessibility of the traffic school, users can use it for free and are rewarded for their responsible behaviour by receiving free Voi rides after completion. The test is adapted for each country and promoted via road safety events and school visits.

What was originally planned as a temporary campaign has quickly evolved into an international success. Four years after the launch of the traffic school, over 600,000 users have completed the test and the initiative was mentioned in more than 50 million media articles across Europe. Voi will continue to improve the school with new content and has the aim to educate another 100.000 riders by 2025.

VOI presentation

 

TeamAlert: Novice drivers and Blikveld

The human brain is only fully developed by the age of 25. Therefore, adolescents can have more difficulties with  self-control and overseeing possible long-term consequences of certain behaviour. They are more sensitive to immediate rewards and peer pressure and tend to overestimate themselves due to inexperience. All these elements can create difficulties for young people to correctly assess traffic situations and possible responses. In order to improve the skills of young novice drivers, TeamAlert developed the project Blikveld. The project is based on the principle of ‘error learning’ and contains eight videos of crashes filmed from the perspective of a driver. The video stops right before the crash, which gives the user the opportunity to analyse the situation and write down the different possible scenarios. Afterwards they could continue the video and read what could have prevented the crash. Research conducted by SWOV has demonstrated that even after five months of following the online training, the car drivers were still more attentive towards potential dangers than before the training.

 

Blikveld presentation

 

Mjam: Together.Safe

Mjam is an Austrian order platform for food and groceries. Over 2.600 bike couriers from 96 different nationalities deliver over 5.000.000 orders on a yearly basis. The safety of their riders is the highest priority for Mjam, and the company therefore implemented several measures. The first step of their safety plan was the recording of detailed internal accident statistics to understand the biggest challenges of the riders. With this information, Mjam developed an app where all riders can read the traffic rules and general cycling information. This is also particularly interesting for the many newcomers in Austria: the team exists of 96 different nationalities. Each new rider has to complete a safety training course before their first ride and have to retake this course very year. They can improve their cycling knowledge via several workshops and one-to-one consultations. An inhouse technician and a company doctor give the riders the opportunity to make sure that both their bike and themselves are in good health. The use of a helmet is obligatory and Rider Safety Teams will support the riders with advice and assistance on the road.  

Their programme is developed in close collaboration with the Austrian traffic police to exchange information about the danger spots in road traffic and feedback on the impact of the programme.

 

Mjam presentation