Global consultancy WSP has published the fourth of its thought-leadership papers in its series “ITS and Vision Zero”, calling for the adoption of a holistic view of ITS to progress to safer roads.
The authors say this view “embraces the interfaces and interactions between modes and users that most often lie at the core of any safety issue—and these interactions, in great part, involve motorised vehicles.”
“The ITS holistic approach integrates people, processes, infrastructure, vehicles and technology, and associated data, to form safe and efficient environments for the movement of people and goods,” they write.
It continues: “While the physical design of vehicles is outside the scope of the intelligent transport system (ITS) field of work, there are vehicle-focused technologies, either particular to the vehicle itself or as part of the broader data-led ITS whole-system approach, that have an impact on the overall safety of the transportation ecosystem. A holistic perspective of transport systems, based on the Safe System principle of shared responsibility among the road system users and system designers,1 will facilitate vehicle-safety improvements in line with Vision Zero, which seeks to prevent death and serious injury within the worldwide road transportation system.”
The paper was written by WSP’s ITS Head of Profession, Ian Patey along with Scott Benjamin, Technical Director, Intelligent Transport, Australia; Mara Bullock, National Manager, ITS Planning Practice, Canada; and Fergus Tate, Technical Director, Transport, New Zealand.
You can read the full paper here.
(Picture – WSP)
