Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI
No more casualties and severely injured persons in road traffic – this is what Vision Zero stands for as a global concept. The aim is to implement innovative technology, better infrastructure and comprehensive education initiatives in order to jointly create a future in which road traffic is safe for everyone. Since 2024, the Deutsche Verkehrssicherheitsrat (DVR, German Road Safety Council) has been presenting the DVR Vision Zero Award to projects that reduce the risk of road accidents through creative safety measures and bring us closer to Vision Zero.
First place for the Fraunhofer IVI Accident Prevention School (FAPS)
This year, Fraunhofer IVI was able to win first place with their FAPS project (Fraunhofer IVI Accident Prevention School). Maria Pohle, Nora Strauzenberg und Vanessa Hilse, who are part of the vehicle and road safety team, accepted the award at the ceremony in Berlin. For many years now, they have been committed to researching ways to better prevent accidents in the future. In doing so, they primarily focus on children and teenagers, as they are an especially vulnerable group of raod users.
Learning from real accident data
The basic idea of FAPS: making accidents experiencable – without any risks. Current accident numbers show that children and teenagers are often involved in pedestrian or bike accidents. About 50 percent of these accidents are not caused by them, but by other, motorized road users. It is therefore imperative to raise the awareness among children and teenagers of the potential for others to behave inappropriately, as this can save lives.
In the field of traffic education, particularly few programs are offered for the "forgotten age group" of 13 to 17 years. FAPS closes this gap and makes accident risks visible where they occur: in the immediate vicinity of schools. For their accident prevention work, the FAPS project uses the accident databases of public authorities and extracts accurate data based on on the geographic location of the participating schools. The teenagers then work with this data within the FAPS software tool. Based on anonymized accident descriptions and accompanying parameters, they can analyze accidents' specific causes and characteristics, as well as accident clusters in their immediate school environment.
Changing perspectives
With the help of VR glasses, the participants can safely and interactively experience critical traffic situations from the points of view of all parties involved. They learn how to identify and internalize the typical risks of pedestrians and bicyclists in road traffic, how to avoid inappropriate behavior themselves, and that they should always factor in the potential inappropriate behavior of others.
The project's interdisciplinary approach combines engineering, data analysis, and psychology to create awareness of the behavior of other road users. In collaboration with the project partners, ADAC Saxony, Wildstyle Network, and VP- Service, and thanks to the support of the Saxony State Prevention Council, the Fundación MAPFRE, as well as the SenMVKU Berlin as main supporter, around 20,000 school students have already benefited from participation in the interactive workshop for safe behavior in road traffic.
We are excited about this outstanding success achieved by our road safety research!
