An ambitious project to reduce road deaths in the Danube Region has taken an important step forward.
At a recent get-together in Belgrade, members of project RADAR (Risk Assessment on Danube Area Roads) finalised the details of their proposal to gain European funding for a roads improvement scheme that would tap into existing budgets and help shape them to maximise crash countermeasures. EuroRAP’s European Institute for Road Assessment, which is based in Slovenia, leads 11 partners working in nine countries.
Busy inter-urban roads are the key focus of the RADAR strategy. Most deaths occur on these roads so they are a priority for government stakeholders. The team will provide practical affordable actions to make travel uniformly safe in the Danube region as a concrete contribution towards the strategic goals of the EU’s road safety area. SEETO (the South East Europe Transport Observatory) has announced that it wishes to partner the project
The RADAR team estimate that implementation of engineering countermeasures in the Danube region network could result in a 40% drop in road deaths with a long-term return of five or six times the initial investment.