Urban Mobility Days 2020 – Session: Innovation and city design for urban road safety

Previously intended to take place as a three-day conference in Brussels, the event’s new online format will enable participants to join debates and exchange expertise on the most important urban mobility topics safely from their own desks.

The conference combines two leading events from Europe’s transport calendar: the CIVITAS Forum Conference and the European Conference on Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). It will allow policymakers, local authorities, academics, NGOs, urban transport practitioners, urban planners and all those putting the SUMP concept into practice to share their experiences using a virtual forum.

Over the course of the digital conference, delegates will hear sustainable urban mobility success stories from the CIVITAS Living Labs projects – and other examples of pioneering excellence from Europe and further afield. These will equip attendees with inspiration, tools, and know-how to further advance clean and sustainable transport in line with the European Green Deal.

With such a wealth of expertise and knowledge-sharing, Urban Mobility Days provides the ideal opportunity to digitally network, debate key issues, and exchange ideas on emerging transport trends and technologies and the latest developments in sustainable urban mobility planning.

Innovation and city design for urban road safety

This session will highlight the importance of innovation in improving urban road safety as well as the crucial role that city and urban design play in mitigating road transport injury burden at a global scale. While advances have been achieved in recent years to reduce accidents in cities and urban areas, progress is still far from satisfactory to European citizens. An Eurobarometer survey (2013) showed that 73% of European citizens consider road safety to be a serious problem in cities. To achieve the European Commission “Vision Zero”, i.e. reach a number of fatalities and serious road injuries close to zero, a concerted effort needs to be made.

The session will engage experts on urban road safety from academia and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC).

Presenters:

• Ellen Townsend, ETS
• Tom Brijs, University of Hasselt, iDREAMS
• Astrid Linder, VTI, VIRTUAL
• Dirk Engels, Transport & Mobility Leuven (TML)

Moderated by Wiebke Pankauke, DG MOVE