Publication

It will soon be 30 years since the birth of Vision Zero and road safety became something everybody working with traffic and urban planning is expected to have knowledge of. A generational change is now taking place where the founders of Vision Zero are planning their retirement and many of those who are starting their working lives lack the knowledge that formed the basis for the changed way of thinking about traffic and road safety. Today, when road safety is a part of the Agenda2030, it is also vital to work with a holistic approach and understand in which ways road safety is important and a driving force in the sustainability work. To just follow guidelines and requirements someone else has developed without understanding the background to them leads to priorities and deviations being made suboptimally. For example, to achieve an increased proportion of active travel, the conditions for pedestrians and cyclists must also be safe for traffic.

How do we ensure that conclusions and experiences from previous research and work live on when new generations take over? For example, the very essence of Vision Zero.

The purpose of this pre-study was to identify the knowledge gap that has been found in several municipal organizations, define what of new research and new practice that needs to be included and review how the knowledge most easily reaches those who need it. The target group has been traffic and urban planners working in Sweden.

The literature study and the poll conducted during the pre-study indicates that the link between road safety and other sustainability issues is not obvious, neither among traffic planners with good traffic safety knowledge nor among those who work with related issues. Professionals who are to present proposals often find it difficult to get their arguments for traffic safety heard for and perceive that there is a lack of priority and knowledge among decision-makers. This may be due to a low level of knowledge higher up in the organization and among politicians, but also because many are unable to work holistically.

If Sweden is to achieve Agenda 2030, the halving target by 2030 and Vision Zero, it is necessary to raise the level of knowledge among both professionals and decision-makers.

We need to build new knowledge and a new commitment to traffic safety in new areas, such as climate, work environment and procurement. At the same time, we need to maintain and develop the knowledge in safe road and street design. On all sides, we need to increase knowledge and the ability to work holistically.
To achieve this, we recommend that there are:

• Courses in both the technical and the social sciences in traffic safety and the sustainable transport system. It is important that students gain a good understanding of the global sustainability goals and good tools to work holistically and target-oriented.
• Complementary training opportunities for professionals. Available to as many people as possible in terms of time, location (onsite/digital) and cost.
• A smorgasbord of easily accessible professional development
  • Webinars, such as the Swedish Transport Administration's webinar series on road safety
  • An annual road safety conference with training elements
  • Shorter courses offered by SAFER, the universities, SKR, the Swedish Transport Administration and consulting or training companies