After 3.5 years of joint efforts in road safety methodologies, policy, and practice integration, our fellow project – Risk Assessment on Danube Area Roads (RADAR) – came to an end at the end of November. 

The RADAR project celebrated its stories of success at the final conference which took place in hybrid mode at the end of September. The conference aimed at ‘Striving for Safer Infrastructure for All Road Users in Danube Area’ and was organized under the aegis of the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the EU and in cooperation with the European Union Strategy for Danube Region (EUSDR) – PA1b: To improve mobility and multimodality – Road, Rail, and Air Links. The conference was an opportunity for road safety organizations and experts to discuss and chart the future strategic directions focusing on the improvement of road infrastructure safety in the Danube area for all road users. It brought together different road safety stakeholders to highlight the RADAR project’s results and demonstrate the benefits of a systematic approach to safer road infrastructure. It contributed to the debate of prioritization of road safety investments and network-wide road safety assessments under revised Road Infrastructure Safety Management (RISM) directive and broader. In addition, the conference underlined the need to work towards the implementation of both the United Nations and European Commission goals on road safety. The materials from the final conference are available HERE. 

At the end of the project, the RADAR consortium published a magazine of 3.5 years of working on improving road infrastructure safety in the Danube area and contributing to safer roads, and decreasing fatal and serious injuries in Danube countries. Besides, they prepared a video highlighting how important the RADAR project was to each participating country. 

                                                   

The SABRINA project builds on the results RADAR has provided during its seamless path towards road safety, by contributing to a safer transport network and safe transport mobility, as well as safe accessibility and mobility in (urban and) rural areas. Both projects aim at raising the capacities of relevant national, regional, and local stakeholders to build and improve infrastructure in a safe and sustainable way. Although the SABRINA project's primary focus lies in improving road infrastructure safety for cyclists as one of the most vulnerable road users, we have found synergies with RADAR within the joint conference on October 15, 2020, and some other joint actions, like the #CommitToAct campaign. The lead partner of both projects is the European Institute of Road Assessment – EuroRAP from Slovenia. Besides, both projects have some common project partners: Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, University of Zagreb; Austrian Road Safety Board; and Automobile Club of Moldova.

As RADAR project partners pointed out at the end of the project: “Road safety shall not end with the RADAR project.” In the SABRINA project consortium, we promise it for sure won’t. We continue RADAR's work with a focus on the safer cycling infrastructure and build on the RADAR project's heritage.