Ealing Council has described road safety as a ‘hugely important issue’ after seeing its work recognised with a number of national awards in recent weeks.
The London Borough enjoyed success in its own right at Brake’s Fleet Safety Awards and the National Transport Awards. In addition, at last month’s Transport Innovation Deployment for Europe (TIDE) event, London was named best Innovative Transport City in recognition of Ealing Council’s cycle safety work.
Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, Ealing Council, said: “I’m delighted for Ealing to be recognised nationally for the outstanding work we have been doing on the hugely important issues of improving road safety, delivering step free access for public transport and making it easier and more fun to travel using greener means of transport.
“Well done to all those involved in delivering our award-winning initiatives, in particular the makers of the Cycle Safety Shield and The Bicycle Society who work with our schools.”
Both the ‘Fleet Safety Analysis and Action Award’ at the 2015 Fleet Safety Awards, and the TIDE award, were for Ealing’s work to develop a new system which warns lorry drivers when there is a danger of a collision with a cyclist or pedestrian.
‘Cycle Safety Shield’ uses intelligent cameras to filter out inanimate objects, such as bus stops and fences, to monitor and detect only pedestrians, cyclists and motorbikes and eliminate blind spots 360 degrees around the vehicle. An alarm alerts the driver if a cyclist, rider or pedestrian comes too close to the vehicle.
Ealing was also named ‘Transport Local Authority of the Year’ at the 2015 National Transport Awards in recognition of a number of initiatives promoting safety and sustainable travel.
These include a redesign of Southall Broadway using shared space principles and a ‘boulevard concept’ which has increased pedestrian and cycle priority without adversely affecting other traffic.
The council has also worked with bus operators to identify bus route delay hotspots and find solutions, and lobbied successfully to maximise the benefits of both HS2 and Crossrail in the borough.
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