FIRST MILESTONES AND PROGRESS IN THE EU PROJECT 

During the past year RADAR project Consortium, 10 Project Partners and 12 Associated Strategic Partners, have devoted unprecedented attention to road safety. Road traffic fatalities remain one of the most pressing challenges of our time, with 1.35 million people killed every year and we all have a responsibility to stop that. To draw attention to this growing problem, the RADAR project has devoted its goals, objectives, and activities to contribute to improving road safety. 

One year later we are pleased to report that with the formation of Road Safety Expert Group (RSEG), the first meeting of RSEG, launch of Road Safety Infrastructure Training courses in Slovenia and Croatia, Study visits in Slovenia and Croatia, the RADAR project activities have already resulted in the initiation of several discussions about seriousness of improving road safety. In the next months, we will continue with training courses across the Danube area counties, as well as with broadening our practical knowledge through Study visits and sharing gained knowledge within RSEG meetings. 

Road safety does not happen accidentally, but as a result of concerted and very deliberate efforts on the part of governments and their citizenry, law enforcement officers, civil engineers, public health experts, vehicle manufacturers, the media and others. We applaud the efforts by all and call upon you to ensure that this momentum continues.  

The RADAR project team

FIRST YEAR REVIEW OF the radar project

June 2018 

• Kick Off Meeting, Budapest  

Oct 2018 

• 1st Danube Road Safety Conference, Dubrovnik CRO 

Dec 2018 

• The Danube Region Transport Days, Ljubljana SI 

Mar 2019 

• Transnational Road Safety Expert Group 1st Meeting 
• Road Safety Infrastructure Trainings in Slovenia  
• Road Safety Infrastructure Trainings in Croatia 
• Study Visits related to infrastructure provisions for VRU in Slovenia and Croatia. Continuing in the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Austria, the visits will demonstrate best practice in key thematic areas 

Mar-Nov 2019

• Road Infrastructure Training in Hungary, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Austria, and the Czech Republic followed by two-day webinars in October

May 2019 

• Plenary Steering Committee meeting 
• EuroRAP General Assembly, Sofia BG

Road Safety Infrastructure Training courses

Are you a road safety engineer in the Danube area? Do you wish to increase your capacities and knowledge in prioritisation of road investments to improve safety?

RADAR Engineers and experts will deliver professional Road Safety Infrastructure Training courses Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Austria, Czech Republic, Moldova, Hungary, and Serbia. RADAR Training courses have already been deployed in Slovenia and Croatia. 

Training courses will analyse the scale of road trauma in the region, demonstrate the methods for ranking infrastructure road safety intervention priorities and present 3-star or better road design concept

Read more about Road Safety Infrastructure Training courses here.

 
More about the training course in Slovenia here and Croatia here. 

Transnational Road Safety Expert Group: 1st meeting

On March 27, 2019, in Ljubljana, RADAR project held the first Road Safety Expert Group (RSEG) meeting on Thematic Area 1 – Safer Roads Investment Plans. The meeting was attended by national public authorities, international organisations, professionals and road safety engineers and interest groups including NGOs. The goal of the first meeting was oriented to optimisation of using limited road investment and road safety investment funds, by supporting most-cost benefit effective engineering solutions at the most appropriate locations/road sections. 

Read more about the formation of Road Safety Expert Group here. 

More about the 1st meeting of Road Safety Expert Group here. 

Study visits in Slovenia and Croatia

RADAR project Partners broadened their practical knowledge through Study visits in Slovenia and Croatia on provision for VRUs (vulnerable road users – pedestrians and cyclist in particular). Study visits focused on sites where countermeasures were successfully implemented and where the best opportunities exist to employ future countermeasures. Three other Study visits are planned in this year in the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Austria. The visits will demonstrate best practice in key thematic areas to exchange knowledge about road safety solutions, concretely implemented in selected locations and showing positive results.

Read more about Study visits in Slovenia and Croatia here. 

More about Study visits in general here. 

SECOND Plenary Steering Committee meeting in Sofia

Along with Project Officer Ana Leganel from the Joint Secretariat, the first results and experiences of the project implementation were discussed on the second Plenary Steering Committee meeting of the project. The monitoring visit turned out to be a milestone in internal communication, strengthening the project team and creating perspectives for follow-up initiatives. All Project Partners and Associated Strategic Partners were present and contributed to the discussion.
Within the meeting, PPs and ASPs discussed best solutions to engage the key stakeholders in the implementation to ensure the establishment of planned stakeholder networks, their feedback and contribution to the project activities and the development and uptake of outputs.

Read more about Second Plenary Steering Committee meeting here. 

SECOND INTERNATIONAL FORUM OF ROAD SAFETY AND INNOVATION

RADAR project was presented by Marko Ševrović, EIRA-EuroRAP, on the 2nd International Forum on Road Safety and Innovation on the topic - New Technologies and Good European Practices which was held in Sofia. More than three hundred delegates heard about RADAR project, including representatives of EuroRAP and RADAR project, International Road Federation, Bulgarian authorities, the European Commission, European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The lecturers of the event were eighteen prominent road safety specialists from Europe, the United States, Australia and Bulgaria, and they shared with the audience how to use and deploy new technologies for reducing

road deaths and improving road safety around the world and Europe.

In the spirit of bringing together the European community to assess the state of the road infrastructure, exchange and share experiences, results and ideas for continuing work on traffic safety in Europe, as well as strengthening cooperation between stakeholders in transport in Europe, Ševrović called to action the Bulgarian road safety authorities to make a change and reduce the number of fatalities and road crashes in Bulgaria, as well as in other countries across Europe. 

More about the 2nd International Forum of Road Safety and Innovation here.

NEWS TITLE - BIG PICTURE AND TEXT

RADAR team has collected road safety data from participating DANUBE countries in Status Report. The data not only included general data, data concerning national road safety strategies, but also infrastructure safety management and infrastructure facilities for vulnerable road users.

Based on the collected data, Bulgaria is at the bottom of the list with 97 fatalities per million inhabitants, while the Czech Republic, Austria, and Slovakia have the lowest number of fatalities per million inhabitants. Austria is also performing better concerning the number of vehicle occupant fatalities, as it has the smallest number comparing to other SEE countries; Bosnia and Herzegovina have the largest number of vehicle occupant fatalities. As for the cyclists, pedestrians and motorcycle fatalities per 1 million population, Bosnia and Slovenia account for the smaller number of fatalities. 
Status Report will contribute to identifying and reducing risk on the Danube road network, enhancing transnational cooperation of relevant stakeholders and road authorities in charge of national road networks, as well as to helping build capacities of PPs, ASPs and road safety engineers and professionals. Finally, it will also contribute to making the Danube Infrastructure Road Safety Improvement Strategy and Action Plan to be used by participating countries from the Danube area to improve safety on their roads. 

*The Status Report includes the following countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Moldova, and Slovakia. 

More about the updated status report on countries in the Danube region to follow soon. 

Follow #RADARproject on social media and website to never miss an update.

CAPITALISATION ACTIVITIES: PROJECT SLAIN

Project SLAIN (Saving Lives and Improving TEN-T Road Network Safety) has eight activities supporting Articles 5 and 6 amendments on Directive 2008/98/EC. It is a EUR 1.9 million project running over two years until March 2021, bringing together nine partners in six countries with activity in Croatia, Greece, Italy, and Spain. Beneficiaries are EuroRAP (as coordinator - Belgium), FPZ - University of Zagreb (Croatia), RSI Panos Mylonas (Greece), Direccion General de Trafico (Spain), RACC-ACASA (Spain), SCT and TES of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Spain), iRAP (UK). The project is funded by the Connecting Europe Facility and manages by INEA, an executive agency of the European Commission. 

1. Producing 4 x Crash Risk Maps for the core TEN-T in each of two years (8,000 km) in Croatia, Greece, Italy (the ANAS network), and Spain
2. 4,000 carriageway kilometers of Star Rating maps
3. Technical justification for network-wide road assessment
4. Preparing a 'How to' guide for network-wide road assessment
5. Technical analyses and estimates of safety of the entire core TEN-T network 
6. Producing 100x examples and case studies
7. Preparing for automation - assessing road signing and lining 
8. Advocacy and communications to support the Directive 

More about project SLAIN to follow soon. 

CAPITALISATION

RADAR project is seeking identification of synergies and communication with other projects that tackle road safety, sustainable transport solutions and improved mobility in the Danube region. 

Do you know any #RoadSafety projects in your region? 

Let's connect! We'd love to give a project a shout out. 

UPCOMING EVENTS   June 11-13: Road Safety Infrastructure training courses in Bulgaria  June 17-19: Road Safety Infrastructure training courses in Bosnia and Herzegovina  June 25-27: Road Safety Infrastructure training courses in Montenegro September 16-18: Road Safety Infrastructure training courses in Austria September 2019: Transnational Road Safety Expert Group 2nd Meeting October 22-13: Study visits (UK) November 12-14: Road Safety Infrastructure training courses in Serbia

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