Event

The schedule for our Thursday lunch webinars is now set and we are looking forward to meet you online and share knowledge about our research and other topics related to saving lives in traffic. We are back with inspiring and knowledgeable seminars about vehicle and traffic safety January 28. The main objectives with the seminars are to share knowledge, get inspiration to new projects and network. The seminars are hosted by SAFER’s leaders for the four research areas, competence networks and connected research resources. We gather around various themes together with experts, and we also invite other relevant speakers for our community. Due to the Corona situation we will continue to hold the seminars online. Don't miss the opportunity to learn and network, a warm welcome to our seminar series during the spring!

SAFER researchers that are included in our contact list will get personal invitations to the seminars. If you are a SAFER partner but not currently active in the network and would like to join the community and the seminars, please contact Mikael (redlich@chalmers.se) to be added to the invitation list.

PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE

Jan 28 – week 4: Zenseact, a new partner in SAFER

Feb 4 – week 5: SAFER’s Connected Research Resources
As a SAFER partner you get access to SAFER’s open research arena and, through relevant projects, research resources available within the network. Also, expertise to use these research resources is available within the community. The overall idea - and one of our strategic cornerstones - is that research should be easier, better and more efficient through collaborative partnerships. This unique set of platforms includes full-scale road traffic safety test environments, simulators and a research lab for active safety and autonomous driving. SAFER also provides physical work areas as well as a world-class naturalistic driving data platform. Together, these resources allow borderless research with outstanding opportunities of real-world testing and validation. 

Feb 11 – week 6: Competence network Automotive Safety Assurance – How do we know automation is safe?
SAFER’s competence network leader Fredrik Sandblom is hosting this session and the topic is to present where we currently stand in our research on safety assurance; validation and verification of autonomous vehicles. We will in this session present two of our ongoing projects; HEADSTART and VALU3S, both focusing on these research challenges.

Feb 19 – week 7: Winter holiday, no seminar this week

Feb 25 – week 8: Integration of road safety in the sustainable development goals- How to connect to other Sustainable development Goals to gain momentum
As an independent endeavor, the road safety movement is limited in potential reach and influence. Positioned as a special interest, road safety is often subordinate to other social needs and can gain progress only where it can achieve attention by road users or those who make decisions about roads and vehicles. But if recognized as a basic necessity that can facilitate progress in meeting social needs ranging from gender equity to environmental sustainability, the potential of road safety can be greatly expanded. 

Integrating road safety among the Sustainable Development Goals is an important step toward embedding road safety expectations and activities in the far-ranging daily processes of governments and in the operations of corporations, businesses and civic organizations globally. Substantial levels of such widespread integration have yet to be achieved but have the potential to expand interventions to a scale where road deaths and serious injuries would be reduced to near zero.
This seminar will cover ideas on how road safety can come out of the little corner it's been put in and how this in turn will give opportunities for the research community.
This is the second session in the UN seminar series: The outcome of the UN Conference on road safety and the Stockholm declaration - Implementation of the nine recommendations supporting the new UN resolution and Agenda 2030. Please note that this session is prolonged 30 min; 11:30-13:00.

Speakers:
•    Prof. Claes Tingvall, Chalmers University of Technology and Chairman of the Academic Expert Group
•    Associate Prof. Maria Krafft, Swedish Transport Administration and member of the Academic Expert Group
•    Matthew Baldwin, DG MOVE Deputy Director General - European Coordinator for Road Safety. 
•    Daniel Helldén, Traffic council, City of Stockholm
•    Pedro Homem de Gouveia, Coordinator for Road Safety & Security, POLIS network

March 4 – week 9: New competence network; Perception, sensing and communication
SAFER’s Competence network leader Lars Hammarstrand is hosting this session and will present topics related to the ongoing knowledge building in this new SAFER network.

Speakers:
Eren Erdal Aksoy, Associate Senior Lecturer, School of Information Technology, Halmstad University
Erik Ström, Professor, Electrical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology

March 11 – week 10: Research area Human body protection – Virtual models for human body protection
This week, the webinar is hosted by SAFER’s Research area director for Human Body Protection, Jolyon Carroll. The topic we cover is virtual models for human body  protection including the SAFER project VIRTUAL.

Speakers: 
Astrid Linder, Research Director Traffic Safety, VTI -  Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute
Erik Brolin, Senior lecturer in Product Design Engineering, School of Engineering Science, University of Skövde
Dan Högberg, Professor in Integrated Product Development, School of Engineering Science, University of Skövde               

March 18 – week 11: The Swedish Transport Administration’s R&I Portfolios & project presentation from REVERE
Ulrika Landelius, Trafikverket/FFI will give an overview of the Swedish Transport Administration’s research and innovation portfolios and how you as a researcher can apply for funding and connect your research to the national research funding programmes.

The second part of this seminar will give you an overview of world-leading projects involving REVERE (Resource for Vehicle Research At Chalmers), a SAFER connected research resource, that have work packages involving data collection in Sweden & India. Arpit Karsolia, Research Engineer at REVERE, will briefly showcase the architecture, collection methodology & value of the data over 60 seconds of highway driving on a selected traffic scenario.     

March 25 – week 12: Theme Vision Zero 
Our research leader Matteo Rizzi is hosting this session that is about the Swedish vision Zero. Matteo will present the current prognosis towards 2050 – what can we expect in terms of traffic safety at this point? How safe is a vehicle by then, and which are the remaining challenges? Also, Ann-Catrin Kristianssen, University of Örebro, will present some local, very efficient and inspiring initiatives, related to the national plan on how to continue to work towards zero fatalities in traffic.

April 1 – week 13: Easter holiday

April 8 – week 14: Hosted by Folksam
Long time SAFER partner Folksam is hosting this session. Four researchers will describe four of their research projects representing different areas of road traffic safety. 

•    Cycling injuries; A summary of a study on fatally injured bicyclists in Sweden and a brief summary of the SAFER cycling initiative.
•    Crash tests with cars used by craftsmen where the focus has been on the influence of securing the cargo. Two tests were conducted, one with loose cargo and one with secured cargo. 
•    Developments in car crash safety in cars launched since the 1980s based on real-world crashes occurring 2000–2019, also separated for gender and age groups. 
•    A pilot study together with Veoneer on the interaction between drivers and ADAS technology. A questionnaire study is also under evaluation.  Some preliminary results of the activities will be presented. 

Speakers: Maria Klingegård, Anders Ydenius, Helena Stigson and Anders Kullgren, Folksam

April 15 – week 15: Competence network Human Behaviour
Our competence network leader Giulio Bianchi Piccinini is hosting this session. 

Anna Anund from VTI will present the project PANACEA, an abbreviation that stands for: PracticAl and Effective tools to moNitor and Assess CommErciAl drivers’ fitness to drive. The project is financed by EC and has an indicative start 1st of May 2021.

With the introduction of highly automated driving systems that relieve drivers from the driving task, it will be possible for drivers to safely engage in more non-driving related tasks (NDRTs). In fact, many car manufacturers emphasize that one of the main advantages of automated cars is that it ‘‘frees up time’’ for other activities while on the move. Emma Nilsson, Industrial PhD student at Volvo Cars Safety Centre will present a study within the FFI financed research projects TIC and Harmonise in which this claim was investigated.

April 22 – week 16: SAFER Pre-study Multimodal Data for Road User Behavior Analysis to Support Safe Driving Patterns & SAFER connected research resources at VTI 
This project is a SAFER pre-study in which the researchers explored machine learning techniques to analyze driving patterns that could lead to the discovery and correction of road defects and driver attitudes. The goal has been to correlate unconventional and multidisciplinary data sources to support data-driven traffic safety insights. The partners have been University of Skövde and Smart Eye and the main results will be presented at the seminar.

This session also features a presentation from VTI. What research resources does VTI offer to SAFER connected partners and researchers?

April 29 – week 17: The Swedish traffic safety result 2020
SAFER’s research leader from the Swedish Transport Administration, Matteo Rizzi, will present a summary of the annual Result conference and the traffic safety status in Sweden 2020, including a discussion session.

May 6 – week 18: IGLAD and the SAFER project STRADA In-depth studies 
IGLAD (Initiative For The Global Harmonisation Of Accident Data) was initiated in 2010 by European car manufacturers and is an initiative for harmonisation of global in-depth traffic accident data to improve road and vehicle safety. A database containing accident data according to a standardised data scheme that enables comparison between datasets from different countries is every year extended with around 900-1000 cases. The project coordinator Ines Heinig will give an overview of the database and its opportunities for SAFER researchers.
STRADA In-depth studies: This is a pilot study to investigate how data can be used to develop a national in-depth database for traffic accidents. To accelerate the development of a safer transport system, researchers, authorities and vehicle manufacturers need access to detailed information on traffic accidents. The pilot will add more variables and reconstructions, for accidents involving fatal and seriously injured people (AIS2 +). The data format developed will be designed to be able to make comparisons with existing European and global accident databases. John-Fredrik Grönvall, SAFER’s infrastructure leader for NDD/FOT will present more details about the pilot project and the future opportunities for the SAFER researchers.

May 13 – week 19: Ascension Day – no webinar this week!

May 20 – week 20: New SAFER Partners
In March SAFER welcomed four new partners to our research community, Viscando, Hövding, DuWill AB & ASTUS. In this special, and prolonged (11.30 – 12.50), edition of the Thursday seminar series, representatives of each company will give us an introduction to their area of expertise, how they aim to contribute to our joint research activities and towards SAFER’s vision, that all road users should travel safely in the transport system!

Speakers:
Yury Tarakanov, Business developer, Viscando
Heino Wendelrup, CTO, Hövding
Tania Dukic Willstrand, CEO, DuWill AB
Rolf Johansson, CEO, ASTUS