News

Yet another year with collaborative life-saving traffic safety research is over and a new thrilling year is waiting round the corner. It has, as always, been an eventful year at SAFER. Several major projects have been completed during the year, and several others have begun, e.g. OSCCAR, Virtual and Drama. Seven new partners have joined SAFER, numerous delegations from many parts of the world have been here to study and learn about the success factors behind collaborative cross-border research. The year has also been characterized by many valuable research results and a great deal of our focus has been on developing the new strategic research agenda for the forthcoming five-year stage of SAFER together with our partners. New year means new opportunities, in our case, a new stage, new projects, new knowledge with both new and old partners! The SAFER management team wishes everyone a lovely holiday with some reflections from 2018:

 
Tania Dukic Willstrand, Research area director for Road User Behavior:
“Our new partners NEVS and Smart Eye are very welcome to complete the RUB team with their knowledge and enthusiasm. The 6th International conference on Driver Distraction and Inattention showed, with its 180 delegates worldwide, that SAFER keep the leading position within human behaviour research in traffic. The team work in my reference group has been fantastic and I do look forward to Stage V, with the new design of our processes and the restart of SAFER pre-studies again!”
 
Mats Svensson, Chalmers’ Profile leader, traffic safety
“From my perspective 2018 became an important landmark with a huge boost in the area of crash safety and human body modelling. In fierce competition two major SAFER-associated EU-projects, with several SAFER partners in each, were granted and started, one of them coordinated by VTI.”
 
Fredrik Von Corswant, Infrastructure leader, Revere
“I have found it inspiring to work with the future of SAFER and the creation of Stage V. The progress made to successfully combining SAFER and Revere as a research infrastructure has also been very positive, as well as the real vehicle testing in collaboration with the SAFER researchers.”
 
Lotta Jakobsson, Research area director for Human Body Protection
“During 2018 it became obvious that the strategic investment in human body modelling we made in the early years of SAFER was right; creating necessary tools for the future and helped to position us internationally. This encourages me to stay inspired and to identify future needs together with my multi-disciplinary peer-researchers at SAFER. “
 
Torbjörn Andersson, Research area director for Safety Performance Evaluation
“SAFER has during 2018 defined the next phase, known as Stage V. The upgraded scope will imply a renewed focus on Safety Performance Evaluation through the goal to explain remaining safety gaps in the whole road transport system while at the same time engage in the definition of new safety requirements for connected and automated driving.” 
 
Magnus Granström, Director
“This has been a successful year in so many aspects, it is the partners that together create this very special, multi-disciplinary research platform. It is really fun to be part of this. Especially, it has been an inspiring time to develop the proposal for the upcoming Stage V in close dialogue with our partners. I do look forward to yet an inspiring year!”
 
John-Fredrik Grönvall, Infrastructure leader Naturalistic Driving Data
“During the 2018, SAFER has been more involved in new Field Data collection project, in Naturalistic Driving studies. SAFER is now involved in both Swedish, European and other global data collections. The databases are essential for good research projects at SAFER and Chalmers.”
 
Malin Levin, Deputy director
“The most important SAFER experience 2018 from my personal perspective was the arrangement of the 6th International conference on Driver distraction and Inattention. To be part of that important meeting, with world-leading researchers, and really feel and share the passion about creating a safe sustainable transport system together, is something I will bring with me into 2019.”
 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,
Magnus and the SAFER Management team