Vision zero: a toolkit for road safety in the modern era

Abstract

Vision Zero (VZ) is a public program that aims to have zero fatalities or serious injuries from road traffic crashes. This article examines various major components of VZ: how VZ redefines road safety, how VZ principles and philosophies can be applied to modern car and road designs, and how VZ can be applied to traffic. Applications of these principles to real-world traffic infrastructure are explored in order to show policymakers the toolkits available to increase road safety while taking into consideration local contexts.

Morbidity and mortality from road injuries: results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

“…More recently, the WHO published the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018 and established focus on road safety goals with performance targets in the WHO’s General Programme of Work 2019–2023 5. Efforts such as Vision Zero have developed cross-setting efforts ranging from countries in Europe to states in India to cities in the USA to develop a road safety paradigm focused on reducing road injury burden to zero 6. The European Transport Safety Council has developed evidence-based guidance on transport safety improvements in Europe, while the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the USA has conducted research on the science of highway safety and on safety profiles of different vehicles.…”

Cost-effectiveness of neighbourhood slow zones in New York City

“…While traffic-calming measures are broadly accepted in many European countries and Japan as necessary inconveniences to combat global warming, obesity, diabetes and injury prevention, they are quite difficult to implement in many other places 32. Even NSZs that are limited to residential neighbourhoods can be challenging to implement due to driver complaints.…”

Swedish Vision Zero policies for safety – A comparative policy content analysis

“…There are exceptions, such as an in-depth study by providing a deconstruction of the policy, and a comprehensive description in an article by Kim et al (2017). These studies show that the Vision Zero policy design is connected to the shift within safety research from a view of accidents as the main problem to kinetic energy and the tolerance of the human body as the real cause of deaths and serious injuries, as proposed by de Haven (1942de Haven ( /2000, Haddon (1968Haddon ( , 1970Haddon ( , 1972Haddon ( , 1973Haddon ( , 1980, and Robertson (1983).…”

“…Vision Zero is internationally seen as a promising road traffic safety policy (International Transport Forum/OECD, 2016;Kim et al, 2017). This impression has been strengthened by official statistics in Sweden showing that the number of road deaths was halved and that the number of deaths among car users decreased by 60% during [2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010].…”