When Sweden introduced the concept of Vision Zero in 1995, it turned the traditional view of road safety work upside down. From a focus on the prevention of accidents, the present direction is that no-one should die or be seriously injured in traffic.
The basic starting point for Vision Zero is the ethical standpoint that no-one should be killed or suffer lifelong injury in road traffic. This means that the view of safety in the road transport system concurs with those values that apply for safety in society as a whole. In working life, and within the rail, shipping and air transport sectors, it goes without saying that no deaths should occur as a consequence of accidents.
According to Vision Zero, the main problem is not that accidents occur – it is instead whether the accidents lead to death or lifelong injury. Vision Zero stresses the fact that the road transport system is an entity, in which different components such as roads, vehicles and road users must be made to interact with each other so that safety can be guaranteed. In order to prevent serious results from accidents, it is essential for the roads, and the vehicles they carry, to be adapted to match the capabilities of the people that use them.
The Vision Zero ideas and methods have since spread to other parts of the world such as New York City, which adopted the practices in 2014.
Key innovations based on Vision Zero
Median barriers and cameras are innovations that have increased the level of safety on Swedish roads. Older solutions such as roundabouts and alcolocks have been developed and have acquired greater importance since Vision Zero was established.
Vision Zero emphasizes the fact that all the different components of the road transport system belong together and influence each other. If an accident leads to serious personal injuries, it is because the various components of the road transport system do not work together.
Human-beings are the fundamental component
The three basic components of the road transport system are the road, the vehicle and the human-being. Human beings are the fundamental component in the system, which must be sized and designed with due consideration to the tolerance of the human body against external forces and the fact that humans sometimes make mistakes.
The system approach that was adopted by Vision Zero involved a new way of thinking, which has in turn led to a change in the focus of road safety work. In those innovations that are developed in the spirit of Vision Zero, there is collaboration between the design of vehicles and road environments, and they are made with the basic starting-point of our limitations as human-beings.
Both new and old
Different solutions have been developed in order to preserve the level of safety within the system. It is a question of both pure innovations and old solutions, which are used in a new way.
Solutions that help drivers maintain the right speed are traffic cameras and Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA), a technology that notifies a driver about the maximum permitted speed. The driver could choose to receive a warning signal if this limit is exceeded.
Alcolocks prevent people who are under the influence of alcohol from starting their vehicles. Centrally-separated 2+1-lane roads make the roads collision-free, which means that head-on collisions are avoided and that speeds can be increased. Roundabouts at road intersections give rise to a natural reduction in speed and the risk of head-on collisions is avoided.
Source: Swedish Transport Administration
