Towards a European key performance indicator for safe urban roads: lessons from the Trendline project
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55329/yxna7190Keywords:
30 km/h, cyclist safety, KPI, safe speed, SPIAbstract
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are an important instrument for road safety policy making. This paper presents a KPI for safe urban roads that was developed and tested in the European Trendline project. Based on discussions with 18 experts from 8 countries, it was decided to start with the basic indicator ‘Share of 30 km/h road length of the total length of urban roads’ which was tested in five pilot countries using available local, national and international (GIS) databases. The share of 30 km/h roads appeared to differ considerably between the pilot countries, ranging from less than 1% in the city of Silistra in Bulgaria to 73% in the Netherlands. The pilots showed that it is possible to calculate the KPI, although it is important to check the quality of the speed limit data and there will be some differences in selections due to data availability and local context. Also the use of additional indicators related to the concept of safe speeds was explored in the pilots. The calculation of these indicators appeared to be more challenging and further research is recommended to further develop these additional KPIs.
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Author Biographies
Wendy Weijermars, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, the Netherlands
Dr. Wendy Weijermars has a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Twente, The Netherlands. She has been working for SWOV institute for road safety research for about 18 years now and currently is a senior researcher and head of the Infrastructure and Traffic department. Her research interests include cyclist safety, Safe System approach, road safety monitoring and forecasting, Key Performance Indicators for road safety and health impacts of road traffic injuries. She has been involved in various EU projects like SafetyNet, SafetyCube, Levitate, and Trendline.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.
Elisabete Rodrigues, National Road Safety Authority, Portugal
Dr. Elisabete Rodrigues has a degree in Geography, Spatial Planning and Development. She completed postgraduate studies in Civil Protection and in GIS (Geographic Information Systems), Agroforestry and Environmental Resources. She began her career in the field of spatial planning and the environment and currently works in road safety, focusing on the geographic analysis of accidents, black spots and the national enforcement plan. She participates in road safety projects and councils, including the Trendline project.
CRediT contribution: Supervision, Writing—review & editing.
Johannes Mesimäki, Johannes Mesimäki, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland
Johannes Mesimäki is a research scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. His research mainly concerns road safety and the advancement of sustainable mobility. His research has related to the safety of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, as well as the potential to replace car travel with cycling.
CRediT contribution: Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing—review & editing.
Simon Sternlund, Swedish Transport Administration, Sweden
Dr. Simon Sternlund is a civil engineer with a MSc in Communication and Transport Engineering from Linköping University and PhD in Vehicle Engineering and Autonomous Systems from Chalmers University. He currently is Road Safety Analyst and Advisor at the Swedish Transport Administration, focusing on road safety target management and crash data modelling. He represents Sweden in CEDR, IRTAD and Euro NCAP.
CRediT contribution: Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing—review & editing.
Maria Georgieva, State Agency Road Safety, Bulgaria
Eng. Maria Georgieva is a graduate engineer in Transport Engineering and Road Construction from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy (UACEG) in Sofia. She has completed a certified course "Black Spot Analysis and Тtreatment" at Royal Haskoning-DHV. She has a certificate of professional qualification "Road Safety Auditor" issued by UACEG. She holds a Master's degree in Road Safety from the Academy of the Ministry of the Interior from a joint program with UACEG. She has worked as a road construction de-signer in a private company. For more than 10 years she worked in the Road Infrastructure Agency, in the “Investment Design and Expropriation Procedures” Directorate, where she performed a wide range of activities related to the management and coordination of invest-ment projects for new construction and major rehabilitation of national roads. Since 2019, she works in the Bulgarian State Agency Road Safety. In her portfolio of tasks are: issuing rec-ommendations to the road management administrations; carrying out inspections on road in-frastructure; preparation of proposals for changes to national legislation, criteria and standards regarding road infrastructure.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Validation, Writing—review & editing.
Jan Hendrik van Petegem, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research
Jan Hendrik van Petegem, MSc, focuses on the development of practical knowledge on the relation between road design and road safety. His main topics of interest are Accident Prediction Modelling, cycling safety and the availability and development of (open) road design and traffic data. He is also involved in the Knowledge Network for the Strategic Plan Road Safety and, as a road safety expert from SWOV, regularly partakes in CROW working groups for the development of road design guidelines.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing—review & editing.
Teun Uijtdewilligen, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, the Netherlands
Dr. Teun Uijtdewilligen investigates road safety for cyclists in the scope of infrastructure, particularly in urban areas. This was also the topic of his PhD research to Road Safety of Cyclists in Dutch cities, a collaboration between SWOV and the University of Twente. In this research, several (open) data sources are combined with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and analysed by using Crash Prediction Models. In addition, Teun works on research into road safety knowledge of municipal civil servants and their knowledge on road safety measures. This is investigated by conducting interviews and questionnaires.
CRediT contribution: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing—review & editing.
Augusto Torbay, National Road Safety Authority, Portugal
Dr. Augusto Torbay is Head of the Road Safety Observatory Division at the Portuguese National Road Safety Authority (ANSR). He holds a Law degree and a Master's in Forensic Law from Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Lisbon). He works primarily in data protection, statistical data collection and analysis, integrated road safety management, and implementa-tion of measures aimed at reducing road accidents. He is also responsible for managing the implementation process of the national road safety strategy in Portugal.
CRediT contribution: Supervision, Writing—review & editing.
Ana Amaro, Municipality of Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Ana Amaro, Technical Expert in Mobility and Traffic Safety in the Mobility Planning and Studies Division at Lisbon’s Municipal Mobility Directorate, where she developed planning for soft mode networks. Recently, she was involved in the development of the Lisbon Municipal Road Safety Plan, focused on reducing accidents and improving road safety. Her interests include the Safe System approach and the development of preventive measures. Additionally, she collaborates with various entities to promote integrated and effective road safety.
CRediT contribution: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration.
Ana Vidigal, Municipality of Lisbon, Portugal
Dr. Ana Vidigal, Technical Expert in Mobility and Traffic Safety Mobility Planning and Studies Division at Lisbon’s Municipal Mobility Directorate. Experience in preparing Munici-pal Road Safety Plans, collaboration in the Plan to reduce urban road accidents, guidance of GIS professional internships applied to road safety and development of web applications for recording road signs and complaints related to safety of road infrastructure. Areas of interest: Land use change and implications for road safety, contribution of complaints to reducing road accidents, monitoring actions to reduce traffic accidents and vehicle safety systems.
CRediT contribution: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration.
Fernando Rosa, Municipality of Lisbon, Portugal
Arch. Fernando Rosa is the Mobility Planning and Studies Division Head at Lisbon’s Municipal Mobility Directorate. His scope of responsibility involves Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning and Studies, with a direct focus on road and street safety analysis and planning, sustainable school mobility safety and active mobility and public transport safety. He is currently involved in various EU projects like UPPER, MedColours and in the GDCI Program BICI School Missing Links Lisbon project.
CRediT contribution: Supervision.
Wouter Van den Berghe, Tilkon Research & Consulting, Belgium
Dr. Wouter Van den Berghe is an independent researcher and consultant who is predominantly active in international road safety projects. His research interests include road safety performance indicators, traffic safety culture, road safety policy-making, and ethical issues in road safety. Wouter was the project manager of the Baseline and Westbelt projects and is currently co-project coordinator of Trendline. He has published various piublications in relation to road safety performance indicators.
CRediT contribution: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing—review & editing.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Wendy Weijermars, Elisabete Rodrigues, Johannes Mesimäki, Simon Sternlund, Maria Georgieva, Jan Hendrik van Petegem, Teun Uijtdewilligen, Augusto Torbay, Ana Amaro, Ana Vidigal, Fernando Rosa, Wouter Van den Berghe
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Funding data
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European Commission
Grant numbers MOVE/C2/SUB/2022-54/CEF/TA/SI2.892654
