ECF attended the ITF 2018 conference in Leipzig last week. Many big names in the transport sector including Bernhard Ensink from ECF attended and this year there was a focus on road safety, very much in the news here in Brussels with the launch of the 3^rd mobility package and vehicle and infrastructure safety regulations being updated.

ITF National minister representatives also published a Ministerial Declaration on Transport Safety with a commitment to improve road safety, and particularly to “support efforts and initiatives that take into account the need for safe transport for everyone across all means of transport, notably vulnerable travelers such as pedestrians, cyclists, children, older and disabled people.” More information on the ITF ministerial Declaration can be found here.

ECF road safety Policy Officer Ceri Woolsgrove attended the POLIS side event “From data to policy: New approaches for data-driven and smart road safety policies in cities and region”. Graziella Jost from the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) spoke about the importance of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), and how the road safety community should get behind the European Union’s plan to have this kind of technology fitted as standard in all EU’s new vehicles. ECF has been promoting this type of technology as a way of calming traffic and reducing cycling and pedestrian fatalities. When ECF asked the various city representatives on the panel which road safety technology measure they would most like to see, Michael Replogle, New York City DOT said that ISA would be revolutionary for road safety but also traffic management.

Melissa Gomez from ECF German members ADFC also participated at the ITF, she attended the CAF development bank of Latin America and FIA’s session on “Women’s personal security in transport in Latin America” where she talked with the participants about moving beyond getting entrenched in the idea of separating women in transport as the ‘normal’, that though this is the right response for the current situation we have to look beyond to achieve a whole behavioral and cultural change where it is unthinkable that harassing women is minimized or tolerated. This underscores the importance and urgency of including men as co-actors of change. She also asked for safe cycling infrastructure that women need, while Sonal Shah from ITDP added that we have to work on two other barriers for many women to cycle: no access to a bicycle and not having learnt to cycle.

Melissa Gomez from ADFC, ECF German members, speaks at ITF session

At the Plenary event German Transport minister Andreas Scheuer gave his support for right turning HGV assist, another vehicle technology and part of the review of the General Safety Regulations that ECF has been lobbying for. Commissioner Bulc introduced the Commissions 3^rd mobility package and also called for road fatalities to become “socially unacceptable” and that Vision Zero should be genuine goal.

A panel session on the safe System Approach had GlobalNCAP secretary general David Ward claiming that speed management was the key to reduction of fatalities, and challenged the car industry to ditch their speed culture and embrace vehicle technologies like Intelligent Speed Assistance. Looking beyond the vehicle the European Commission’s Deputy Head of DGMOVE called for cities and Member States to implement 30 kmh as default in urban areas (another ECF proposal). He said we should follow the science that there is a 10% chance surviving being hit at 50kph and a 90% chance survival at 30kph.