Knowledge building and sharing

Local authorities play a crucial role in road safety, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists. In Sweden, serious injuries among cyclists have not decreased at the same rate as injuries among car occupants, while pedestrians’ falls account for a large share of severe injuries in the road transport system. Municipal action is therefore essential for achieving Vision Zero and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Despite this responsibility, many municipalities lack a systematic approach to road safety. National follow-up has shown that only a small proportion of municipalities demonstrate a high level of systematic work for safe walking and cycling. Municipalities often focus on infrastructure planning but struggle to integrate road safety into procurement, maintenance, workplace travel, construction projects and communication activities.

Another challenge is that road safety is frequently treated as a standalone issue rather than being integrated into broader sustainability, public health and urban development agendas. Municipalities have requested practical support on how to translate Vision Zero, the Stockholm Declaration and Agenda 2030 into everyday decision-making.

Trafiksäkerhetslyftet (Systematic Traffic Safety Implementation by Local Authorities) was developed to address these challenges by providing a practical framework for systematic, organisation-wide road safety management at the local level.

Road safety is often viewed as a transport-sector issue, while the role of employers, transport purchasers and public organisations remains largely overlooked. Yet work-related mobility has a major impact on road safety. In Sweden, approximately 45% of all fatal road crashes involve work-related travel or transport activities, either because a road user was travelling for work or because a work-related transport was involved.

At the same time, many organisations do not systematically address road safety within their occupational health and safety management, sustainability work, procurement processes or transport operations. Significant safety potential remains untapped, particularly regarding safe speeds, seat belt use, safe vehicles, impairment prevention and safety requirements in purchased transport services.

The initiative addresses this gap by helping organisations understand their responsibility for road safety and by providing practical support for integrating road safety into everyday management processes. It targets employers, transport operators and transport purchasers across both public and private sectors, recognising that nearly all organisations generate travel and transport that affect employees, suppliers and other road users.

The overall challenge is therefore not a lack of technical road safety knowledge, but how to embed road safety into organisational decision-making, leadership, culture and management systems.

To warn road users of a danger on a road section, for instance following an accident, and to divert the traffic in a safe direction, traditionally wind-powered torches made of wax material are used. This solution implies some relevant road safety problems. First, exposure and risks for operators, on one side of being hit by vehicles while torches are placed on the road surface and turned on, on the other side of being wounded by open flames. Furthermore, damage of the asphalt on which torches are placed during use, compromising its useful time, and lack of practicality since they are made of fibrous materials and wax and can’t be extinguished even if no longer needed.
Every year road workers and emergency operators are injured or killed while deploying temporary warning devices in live traffic environments. Flash-Led was conceived to eliminate this exposure by enabling remote deployment of warning systems and significantly improving operator safety.
The present invention relates to a road signalling system aimed to substitute the traditional use of wind-powered torches, allowing an effective signalling of danger and/or obstruction and/or traffic channelling, ensuring the complete operators safety, avoiding infrastructure damages and, furthermore, informing road users through road navigation platforms. The solution includes n. 4 electric movable elements signalling with high visibility LEDs, remotely controlled by an operator from a plurality of possible schemes and arranged in an easily transportable container, which can reports the danger to users through platforms like Google/Waze etc.

The Short Course in Road Safety, Mobility and Health addressed the need for stronger interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between road safety, health, mobility and safe participation in transport. Road safety challenges are not only technical or enforcement-related; they are also influenced by human behaviour, health status, ageing, disability, rehabilitation needs, distraction, professional practice, and wider mobility systems.

The initiative responded to a gap in structured education for professionals whose work may affect, advise or support road users, but who may not always receive formal training on the links between health, mobility and road safety. The course aimed to improve awareness of safe mobility, medical and functional considerations, rehabilitation/adaptations, human factors, active travel, and the wider policy context, including Vision Zero and Ireland’s Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030.

A key challenge addressed was bringing together diverse professional perspectives so that road safety is understood as a shared responsibility across health, transport, rehabilitation, public health and related disciplines.