Germany

From July 2024, stricter EU regulations (GSR II) will come into force for all newly registered trucks and buses. Most of these also apply to city buses. An important exception in GSR II is the emergency braking assistance system, which is not mandatory for buses with unprotected standing and seated passengers. For this type of city bus, ZF has developed a brake assistance system that reduces the consequences of a possible collision. It contains a braking cascade which starts with a first braking pulse which enables sufficient reaction time for standing passengers in order to prepare for the actual braking maneuver, for example by holding and/or a compensating step. The deceleration is then raised to a conservatively selected value which is still controllable for standing passengers and at the same time represents a satisfactory balance with the desired reduction in the vehicle speed and the reduction in the severity of the collision. The Collision Mitigation System (CMS) protects both passengers and vulnerable road users and enables a safer urban public transport.

Vulnerable road users (VRUs), including pedestrians and cyclists face several significant road safety challenges, especially at the intersections and crosswalks. Poorly designed or marked crosswalks, inappropriate traffic light planning and lack of pedestrian priority measures contribute to higher risks. More particularly, many intersections do not give sufficient priority to pedestrian or cyclists. Short crossing times, lack of adequate pedestrian requests, lack of dedicated pedestrian phases, lack of information providing to the VRUs, and insufficient waiting areas at intersections increase the risk of accidents and put in jeopardy the safe crossing of the intersection. Examining the accidents in intersections has revealed that one of the situations with high accident risk is when a vehicle is performing a right turn at the intersection while a cyclist or pedestrian is crossing the road straight and is at the blind spot of the driver.
Furthermore, the approaching and crossing of an intersection by an emergency vehicle using only the alarm is a critical safety situation for different groups of road users. Firstly, emergency vehicles are facing critical and dangerous situations while getting to the emergency scene time, since drivers do not react immediately to make space and in front of red traffic lights, many drivers wait for "green" instead of carefully crossing the stop line and making room for it. In addition, the vulnerable road users could also be exposed to danger in this scenario. For example, a pedestrian may not be paying attention and hear the alarm too late or it could be a hearing impaired person.

In today’s digital age, more and more data is collected every day in the field of transportation. Still, authorities solely rely on historical traffic accident data to detect black spots. This leads to the shortcoming that accidents must happen before measures are taken. Additionally, in relation to a specific location on the traffic network, traffic accidents are rare events. Thus, for credibly evaluating the safety of a road element, several years of traffic accident data are needed. As a result, road users are put at an unnecessary risk if measurements are taken too late. There is therefore an urgent need to take new paths in the field of road safety analysis. Our EDDA+ road hazard map detects potential dangers in road traffic at an early stage by combining existing safety-relevant data with new data sources.

Urban mobility is not gender-neutral. Public and shared transport often fails to accommodate the diverse and complex mobility needs of women. Men in the UK continue to make twice as many cycle trips compared to women . We see this pattern emerging in new forms of micromobility too, like escooters, but not everywhere and we need to identify what broader factors are negatively affecting uptake. Our ridership profile in the Nordics is close to even between women and men, all countries with longer histories of gender inclusion, suggesting micromobility may not be the challenge to increased adoption. TIER is committed to understanding how micromobility innovation can respond to barriers that prevent women from moving freely in cities, and to develop and share best practices across the 500+ cities we operate in. To change mobility for good, and understand the mobility needs of women, TIER partnered with Safe & the City to conduct a multi-regional study of 403 women in the UK and 411 women in Berlin. Note that this study is part of a broader shift within TIER, including Women of TIER, which strives for a diverse and inclusive workplace and industry by showcasing female role models and a DEI strategy to improve representation at all levels of our business so it too reflects a more inclusive rider base.

Urban mobility is not gender-neutral. Public and shared transport often fails to accommodate the diverse and complex mobility needs of women. Men in the UK continue to make twice as many cycle trips compared to women . We see this pattern emerging in new forms of micromobility too, like escooters, but not everywhere and we need to identify what broader factors are negatively affecting uptake. Our ridership profile in the Nordics is close to even between women and men, all countries with longer histories of gender inclusion, suggesting micromobility may not be the challenge to increased adoption. TIER is committed to understanding how micromobility innovation can respond to barriers that prevent women from moving freely in cities, and to develop and share best practices across the 500+ cities we operate in. To change mobility for good, and understand the mobility needs of women, TIER partnered with Safe & the City to conduct a multi-regional study of 403 women in the UK and 411 women in Berlin. Note that this study is part of a broader shift within TIER, including Women of TIER, which strives for a diverse and inclusive workplace and industry by showcasing female role models and a DEI strategy to improve representation at all levels of our business so it too reflects a more inclusive rider base.

Drinking and riding an e-scooter is an entrenched problem facing our sector and, to date, no-one has adequately tackled the issue. Through our taxi partnerships feature TIER aims to help address that major road safety challenge. Alcohol consumption has been identified as an important risk factor resulting in road traffic injury or death. A recent study found that 20% of injuries sustained by e-scooter users were sustained while under the influence of alcohol. This research (and other studies) indicate that traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are among the most severe injuries sustained by e-scooter users that ride under the influence of alcohol. The same study found that alcohol consumption increases the risk of a TBI fivefold while operating an e-scooter compared to a sober user. E-scooter injury analysis in the US cities of Santa Monica and San Diego suggest a strong correlation between alcohol consumption and crash severity. TIER's feature is part of our programme of work that aims to prevent drink riding amongst the micro-mobility sector. The objectives of the anti-drinking and riding campaign are as follows: 1. Remind riders about the dangers of drinking and riding and e-scooter. 2. Encourage riders to take a taxi home if they have then drinking, rather than take a TIER 3. Make it as easy as possible for riders to get home quickly if they have been drinking. The target audience of the campaign is any e-scooter user who is likely to use our service whilst under the influence of alcohol.

The risk potential on German roads remains high: Even in 2020 with less traffic due to the Covid-pandemic, the police counted 264,000 traffic accidents with people injured or killed . Improvements have been scarce and the numbers have been stagnating over the last decade. Especially in cities, this trend is due to increased traffic volume, new means of transport (such as pedelecs, small electric vehicles) and distraction when driving. Dangerous situations are often misjudged or not recognized on time. The goal of EDDA+ (acronym for "Early Detection of Dangerous Areas in road traffic using smart data", German: FeGiS+) is to identify risks in road traffic at an early stage to avoid collisions by means of timely warnings or preventive measures. We want to achieve this by making better use of existing safety-related data and tapping into new data sources, thus contributing to better road safety. On the one hand, the EDDA+ information is to be incorporated into intelligent applications for road users to provide timely warnings of danger zones and to indicate safe routes in terms of roads, cycle paths and footpaths. On the other hand, this continuously updated data is to be compiled on a platform and made available for the first time throughout Germany to those involved in road safety work such as local authorities, police, science, engineering offices, navigation providers and car manufacturers for road safety and prevention work.