Fleet operators

Heavy-duty transport is essential to the European economy, but it also involves specific road safety risks that are often underestimated in daily work. Incorrect or insufficient load securing, poor understanding of vehicle dynamics, lack of awareness of rollover risks, distraction, routine-based behaviours and the incorrect use or misunderstanding of onboard safety technologies can all contribute to serious crashes.
A major challenge is that many safety rules are known in theory but are not always translated into consistent practical behaviour. Drivers, loaders, fleet operators and company employees often share responsibility for safe transport, yet they may not always have the same technical knowledge or the same perception of risk.
The Safer Truck project addresses this gap by focusing on work-related road safety in heavy-duty transport. It makes risks visible, practical and understandable, especially those linked to load securing, vehicle stability, professional driving behaviour, ADAS and operational procedures. The project was created to move road safety training beyond the classroom and into the real working environment of drivers, companies and logistics operators.

Driver fatigue, sleepiness, and sleep disorders are among the most significant yet least recognised road safety risks in Portugal. While these factors are known internationally to contribute substantially to serious and fatal road crashes, there has been a lack of national data and public awareness regarding their prevalence and impact on Portuguese drivers.

The project addresses several key road safety challenges:

The high prevalence of fatigue and sleepiness among drivers, with more than half of Portuguese drivers reporting having driven while excessively tired or fatigued, and one-third admitting to driving while so sleepy that they had difficulty keeping their eyes open.

The presence of undiagnosed or poorly understood sleep disorders, including sleep apnoea and insomnia, which significantly increase the risk of fatigue-related driving incidents. Approximately one in four drivers experiences excessive sleepiness and one in five is at high risk of sleep apnoea.

Limited awareness of sleep disorders and their consequences for road safety, with around 20% of drivers unable to identify common sleep disorders or the main symptoms of sleep apnoea.

The widespread use of ineffective strategies to combat fatigue while driving, such as opening windows, increasing radio volume, or consuming caffeine, instead of evidence-based measures such as taking a nap or stopping to rest.

The significant contribution of fatigue and sleepiness to road crashes and near misses, particularly among young drivers, professional drivers, shift workers, and those driving during night-time and early morning hours.

By addressing these challenges, the project aims to improve awareness, encourage behavioural change, support early identification and treatment of sleep disorders, and ultimately reduce fatigue-related road crashes in Portugal.

RoadmasterVR specializes in integrating new drivers into large commercial fleets and assessment companies. This is especially critical as a high volume of drivers transition to the EU from third countries like India, Brazil, and the Philippines, frequently facing a steep learning curve regarding EU regulations and driving culture.

By immersing drivers in realistic scenarios, RoadmasterVR accelerates adaptation to potential on-the-road challenges, ensuring a faster, safer, and more environmentally conscious integration process.

Data from five distinct focus groups proves the platform's real-world impact: drivers trained using RoadmasterVR experienced 18.4% fewer accidents over the same timespan compared to those who did not. Depending on fleet size, this reduction not only makes public roads significantly safer but also yields substantial corporate cost savings by drastically lowering insurance premiums and vehicle downtime.

The programme of the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace was designed to address a wide range of systemic and behavioral challenges identified at both the local and national levels. The main challenges addressed are the following:

Lack of Experiential Education and Dangerous Youth Behaviors: Traditional road safety education was often limited to strictly theoretical approaches. At the same time, a high tolerance for dangerous behaviors was recorded among young people, such as the non-use of seatbelts in rear seats, riding without a helmet, driving under the influence of alcohol or fatigue, and using a mobile phone while driving. We addressed this challenge by introducing permanent simulation equipment (intoxication simulation glasses, crash simulators) to achieve a practical, experiential change in the students' mindset.

Protection of Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs): The safe integration of pedestrians, young children, cyclists, and the elderly into the urban environment remains a constant challenge. This problem was tackled through micro-mobility education, the organization of traffic education parks for the issuance of a "Bicycle Driving License", as well as targeted actions tailored for the elderly.

Professional and Freight Transport Safety: The operation of heavy vehicles (trucks and buses) entails significant risks related to driver fatigue, cargo securing, and compliance with driving hours. This challenge was addressed by publishing specialized manuals for professional drivers and providing continuous training to the "Roadside Inspection Teams".

Ignorance of the Highway Code and Anti-social Driving: Phenomena such as illegal parking on disability (ADA) ramps and pedestrian crossings, along with an ignorance of new legal provisions, severely degrade road safety. This problem was approached through direct on-street actions, including the distribution of "warning tickets" and informational material to citizens.

Lack of Digital Data for Decision-Making: The absence of a centralized digital recording system for dangerous incidents, accidents, and road defects hinders targeted planning. This challenge is being addressed through the adoption of the "Pythios" system, which is capable of recording, mapping (via heatmaps), and analyzing data in order to guide and prioritize administrative interventions.

Geographical and Local Constraints: The lack of access to traffic education activities for remote areas constitutes a major inequality issue. The Region addressed this by organizing activities in remote schools in the Prefecture of Drama, in mountainous areas of the Prefecture of Xanthi, as well as conducting special educational interventions in island areas, such as Samothrace.

In Europe, roadworks and active emergency response are among the highest-risk situations on the road, not just for passing traffic, but for the people working at the roadside and the crews racing to those who need them.

The scale of the problem is significant. In Sweden, a TMA vehicle is struck every 12.6 days. In Flanders alone, there were 444 injury accidents and 5 fatal crashes at or near roadwork sites in 2025. Emergency services face a parallel challenge: modern vehicles are quieter and drivers are increasingly distracted, meaning sirens and warning lights register later, costing emergency vehicles time they cannot afford to lose. In the Netherlands, research estimates a 40 to 90% reduction in ambulance-related collisions where digital alerting is applied. Beyond collisions, in cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, each minute of reduced arrival time increases a patient's chance of survival by approximately 6%.

For decades, road workers and emergency responders have relied on just two warning channels: visual signals and audible ones. Both are losing effectiveness as vehicles become quieter and driver attention becomes harder to hold. A third, digital channel is needed: a warning that reaches the driver directly, inside the vehicle, regardless of ambient noise or momentary distraction.

This is the challenge that Digital Alerting, the in-vehicle warning system developed by HAAS Alert, addresses. Through two applications, Roadworks Warning (RWW) and Emergency Vehicle Approaching (EVA), drivers receive in-vehicle notifications before they would otherwise see or hear a hazard, giving them real, usable time to slow down, move over, or clear a path.

Because seconds save lives.

Night-time road safety represents one of the most critical challenges in Italy, particularly for young adults aged 18–35. National and local statistics show that the most severe road accidents occur during night-time hours and weekends, when alcohol consumption, fatigue and reduced visibility significantly increase risk. In urban areas such as Rome, these risks are amplified by the lack of frequent night public transport, especially after large events and festivals.

Young people returning from concerts, nightlife venues or university events often rely on private cars, increasing exposure to driving under the influence, distraction and speeding. Road crashes remain the leading cause of death among young people in Europe, and Italy continues to record a road mortality rate above the EU average.

Events and festivals represent peak-risk scenarios: thousands of people leave the same venue ensuring congestion, late-night driving and impaired decision-making. Despite this, traditional road safety policies rarely address mobility during events in a structured way.

CBH addresses this gap by focusing specifically on organised night-time transport during high-risk hours (typically between 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM), providing a safe, collective alternative to private car use. The initiative directly tackles behavioural risk factors by removing the need to drive after social events, targeting the exact context and time window where the probability of severe accidents is highest.

The main challenge addressed by this practice is the traditional barrier to entry for deep-tech innovation: the need for large, specialized, and expensive development teams. This often slows down a project's ability to adapt and innovate, especially for mission-driven initiatives with limited initial resources.

The primary challenge we address is not a single road safety issue, but the systemic limitation of a reactive mindset. Current technology platforms often create data monopolies, lack interoperability, and are driven by profit motives rather than public interest. This creates a barrier to building a truly integrated, trustworthy, and proactive safety ecosystem that public authorities can rely on and help shape.