ESRA (E-Survey of Road Users’ Attitudes) is a rapidly growing initiative of research organizations and road safety institutes from all over the word. This joint initiative aims at collecting comparable data on behaviour and attitudes of road users by means of an online panel (questionnaire) survey (Meesmann et al., 2022). The initiative is coordinated by Vias institute together with 10 Steering group members (BASt (Germany), DTU (Denmark), IATSS (Japan), ITS (Poland), KFV (Austria), NTUA (Greece), PRP (Portugal), SWOV (Netherlands), TIRF (Canada) and University of G. Eiffel (France)). The initiative is financed by partners’ own resources or sponsors. In total the ESRA survey was already conducted in more than 60 countries across the world.

The initiative started in Europe in 2015 (ESRA1), and rapidly grew to a global project. A second edition followed between 2018 and 2020. In spring 2023, the third edition of ESRA was implemented in 39 countries and the related results will be available this summer. The ESRA survey addresses different road safety topics (e.g., speeding, distraction, driving under the influence of alcohol, not using seatbelt) and the themes covered in the survey include amongst others self-declared unsafe behaviour, attitudes and opinions on unsafe traffic behaviour and safety perception and support for road safety measures. The survey targets car occupants, moped riders and motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians. New in the most recent edition is that questions on vulnerable road users were expanded and new questions for riders of e-scooters and on infrastructure were added. In Europe, 23 countries participate in ESRA3. The proposed presentation will present the ESRA initiative and show first results of the most recent edition (ESRA3).
This presentation will be the kick-off of a series dissemination activities in 2024 and 2025. Within the upcoming months, the ESRA consortium will update results of the previous edition and show evolutions of key results over time. Key results of the second edition (ESRA2) were published through a series of reports (i.e., final report, methodology report, 15 thematic reports on road safety topics, 48 country fact sheets), they were used for scientific articles, conference contributions, national reports, or other projects (e.g., Baseline KPI alcohol). ESRA2 output can be freely consulted and downloaded at the ESRA website (www.esranet.eu). Key results of the previous edition are also presented in the form of a dashboard, which will be updated in 2024.

Keywords: road safety, monitoring, international, attitude, behaviour

Vias institute - Brussels - Brussels - Belgium Gerald Furian

Since the early 1990s, road fatalities among children (0-14y) decreased sharply on European roads, and yet 386 children were killed in 2020 alone and more than 6000 have been killed over the last ten years. Traffic systems are not always designed in a manner, which allows safe participation of children in traffic. Furthermore, children are particularly vulnerable road users, which need to be protected. Children are still developing the cognitive and physical skills necessary to travel safely in traffic. Because of their small size, children are less visible than other road users and they are less experienced. They can easily become innocent victims in collisions, due to poor infrastructure, inappropriate speed limits or the unsafe traffic behaviour of others.

Furthermore, children travel more often as pedestrians or cyclists (vulnerable road users) compared with other age groups and their body shape requires the correct use of specific child-restraint-systems. Adults, and in particular parents or carers, have a key role in children's participation in traffic. The presented explorative study aims to provide insights into the road safety situation of children in Belgium. The focus is on the children’s behaviours (i.e., mobility and self-declared risky traffic behaviour) and children’s and parents’ perception of road safety (i.e., risk perception, safety feeling, acceptability of risky traffic behaviour, support for policy measures). By means of an online panel survey, parents and children were asked to fill in questionnaire.

The survey was conducted in July 2022 and assessed answers of 1669 respondents. The presentation will highlight key results of the study, such as: Children tend to perform better for the use of bicycle helmets than adults, but more frequently report the use of the mobile phone while cycling. Children rather accept unsafe pedestrian behaviour compared to unsafe cycling behaviour. Legal measures on child road safety are highly supported by parents. Mothers are more critical about the traffic safety situation of their child compared to fathers. The Safe System approach can help to increase the road safety of children. To improve the system all parts of the systems must improve: safter infrastructure, safer speeds (i.e., 30km/h in urban roads), safer vehicle technology (e.g., ISA, AEB), better use of protective equipment (e.g., bicycle-helmets, child-restraint-systems), consistent enforcement and adequate sanctions, traffic education and awareness-raising of other road users regarding the presence of children in traffic.

Keywords: Children, road safety, parents, behaviour, risk

Vias institute - Brussels - Brussels - Belgium