Priorities for Road Safety Research in Europe (PROS)

Research Project, 2012 – 2014

In spite of all improvements in European road safety, more than 80 people are killed and about 4000 get injured on European roads each day. The progress made so far is to a large extent based on intensive, publicly funded road safety research activities. While many “low-hanging fruits” in road safety have already been picked, a multitude of more specific research issues remains. With ICT opening up an enormous potential for new integrated safety applications, the research area of road safety is becoming broader and broader with the risk of diluting efforts. As a result of the political focus on the greening and electrification of road transport, the focus of European road transport research funding has moved away from safety topics increasing the need to identify those safety research topics which public money will be invested in most efficiently. Therefore, PROS is to establish a pan-European network to develop commonly agreed priorities in road safety research and overcome the current fragmentation in relevant stakeholder groups. This network will follow an integrated approach covering human, vehicle and infrastructure aspects and all phases from preventive to post-crash safety.