Proactive Road Safety Management Techniques

The increasing popularity of smart cities and recent developments in sensing, edge computing and vehicle technologies and the availability of “big data” combined with sophisticated AI techniques offer an opportunity to substantially advance and fundamentally transform the road safety profession—enabling continuous, real-time, proactive safety evaluation and optimization. The application of innovations that are both progressing and disrupting the status quo represents an opportunity for improved transportation safety. However, with the introduction of new modes of mobility and the complex interactions created by these different technologies within the transportation system, governments will need to rely on advanced research and analysis techniques to support policies towards the transition to these new forms of mobility and technologies. These issues are discussed and several methods and techniques developed in this area are described with example projects from several agencies worldwide.

Tarek Sayed is a distinguished professor and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair of Transportation Safety and Advanced Mobility at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on traffic operation and safety, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and the application of information technologies.