We are pleased to inform you that the Risk Assessment on Danube Area Roads (RADAR) project launched in 2018 will be prolonged and extended with new activities until November 2021. This prolongation and extension of activities within two new additional activities were approved by the Monitoring Committee of the Danube Transnational Programme.
Jeopardised future of road safety?
Improving road infrastructure safety in the Danube area was set as an overall and outstanding objective of the RADAR project. However, this critical time requires action to demonstrate by facts the real impact of the pandemic on road safety in the region and lessons to be learned from it.
The objective of this extension is to complement work already done and include in the Danube Infrastructure Road Safety Improvement Strategy (DIRSIS) and Danube Infrastructure Road Safety Improvement Action Plans (DIRSIAP) two road safety issues that emerged well after the start of the RADAR project.
The COVID-19 crisis has had an unprecedented impact on mobility patterns and transport worldwide and therefore on road safety while the requests of the amended RISM Directive require the use of different proactive approaches to road infrastructure safety management.
The inclusion of analysis, recommendations, and action plans related to post-COVID-19 pandemic and investments in road safety as well as the guidelines on how to implement the amended Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive 2019/1396/EC (RISM) in the Danube area are very important for the future of road infrastructure safety. With new activities, two new Road Safety Expert Groups (RSEG) are established on Thematic Area 5: Transport Safety and Covid 19 and Thematic Area 6: Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive 2019/1396/EC (RISM) in the Danube area.
First region-wide strategy on the improvement of road infrastructure safety applicable to countries around the world
The work on RADAR so far was focused on four TAs (Safer Roads Investment Plans, Provisions for Vulnerable Road Users, Smart Speed Management Infrastructure, and Road Safety near Schools) which were the most relevant building blocks of future strategic management of infrastructure road safety in the Danube Area. With two new reports on thematic areas, two new infographic factsheets will follow the example of four already published thematic areas information sheet.
With the Thematic Area report on RISM and recommendations for its implementation including the Strategy, the RADAR Danube Infrastructure RS Improvement Strategy will become the most comprehensive Strategy in Europe at this moment. It will serve EU countries even outside the Danube area and support improvement of road infrastructure safety in the region for multiple road users, on the Danube major, secondary and tertiary road network.
