The first project to receive a grant from the current Road Safety Trust funding round will provide road safety stakeholders in the West Midlands with access to data to help reduce road collisions.
In its latest funding round, the Road Safety Trust will provide grants totalling more than £1 million to eight organisations across the UK for technology-focussed road safety projects.
The first grant of £200k has been made to the Road Safety Foundation who, working in partnership with tech company The Floow, will make detailed telematics speed data available to stakeholders including community speedwatch groups, parish councils, local authorities, police and researchers across the West Midlands.
Under the project, operating procedures and guidance notes showing how the data could be used will be developed and shared. Stakeholders will also be supported through implementation, for example in developing an enforcement strategy and carrying out route reviews including helping with the placement of curve speed warning systems.
The project is the subject of a presentation to be delivered as part of the 2021 Festival of Road Safety, which will look at the use of telematics data to inform road safety practice.
Dr Suzy Charman, executive director at Road Safety Foundation, said: “We are really excited about this project, having seen the huge value that high-granularity speed data has brought to our own work undertaking road assessments for local authorities.
“Being able to make the data available to a wide set of road safety stakeholders will help them to base their decision making on high quality data, and will allow us to understand the full possibilities for using the data across road safety management, enforcement, engineering, and education.”
Sally Lines, chief executive of The Road Safety Trust, added: “We really welcome the Road Safety Foundation project as it has a clear link to how technology can be used to improve road safety and in turn help us work towards our vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on UK roads.
“Using the evidence from telematics speed data will help informed decision-making and communication between key stakeholders in the West Midlands.
“We expect that new policies designed to improve road safety can be developed and implemented thanks to this project and through this process of using data to help engagement, initially in the West Midlands and ultimately throughout the UK.”
The Road Safety Trust is the UK’s largest independent road safety grant-giver. The Trust funds vital research and practical interventions committed to reducing the number of people killed or injured on UK roads. Since it was established in 2014, The Road Safety Trust has awarded grants worth £3.9m to 56 different projects.
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