Keywords

Adoption and Basic Principles (Christian Kellner, Ute Hammer DVR)

Vision Zero had early supporters in Germany. For instance, the “Traffic Club Germany” (VCD) developed a plan for Vision Zero in 2004, (https://www.vcd.org/themen/verkehrssicherheit/vision-zero/) and the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia included Vision Zero in its road safety program in 2005. The idea gained further impetus on the federal level in September 2007 when the executive board of the German Road Safety Council (DVR) resolved to align its road safety activities to the Vision Zero strategy.

As a nonprofit association with more than 200 member organizations throughout Germany, the DVR includes many stakeholders. Among these are employers’ liability insurance associations (BGs), the public sector accident insurers, the federal government and the federal states, the German Road Safety Volunteer Organization (Deutsche Verkehrswacht), the automotive and automotive supply industry, and many more. Many other institutions soon joined and explicitly committed themselves to the Vision Zero strategy. Due to the proximity of the DVR to the employers’ liability associations, Vision Zero also received considerable support in the area of occupational safety, as it has also done in many other parts of the world.

The DVR’s decision was based on the conviction that the death toll on German roads was unacceptable. The number of road accident victims in Germany has been recorded by the Federal Statistical Office since 1953. Since then, a total of 736,000 people have been killed in road accidents in Germany. This is more than the number of inhabitants of the city of Frankfurt am Main. Even now, when the number of road accident fatalities has reached an estimated historic low of 3,090 in 2019, on average 8.5 people die in road accidents in Germany every day.

Let us imagine that cars had not yet been invented. Someone then came and explained to politicians, the media, and the general public in Germany that they had invented an entirely new technology which puts personal mobility on a completely new basis thanks to motorized, individually controlled vehicles. However, the introduction of this technology would entail a new type of accident, namely road accidents. According to their estimate, this would involve a daily average of 8.5 fatalities. It should be obvious that this new technology would never be introduced, and that the inventor’s proposal would be rejected and perhaps even cause outrage. Who could justify introducing a technology that would cause 8.5 fatalities every day? Politicians, society, and the media would be unanimous in their rejection.

The decision to adopt Vision Zero also has a constitutional background. The right to life and physical integrity, which is precisely what Vision Zero demands, is a central concept in the constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany. Protection of this right is the responsibility of state bodies. The legislature and the executive are required to do all that is necessary to prevent infringement of this constitutional right. In view of the many options which are available, it is questionable whether the traditional traffic safety policy, which accepts a considerable number of deaths and severe injuries as unavoidable, provides such protection.

Road users cannot achieve traffic safety on their own. It is the duty of the state and industry to develop a safe traffic system. However, this does not eliminate individual responsibility. Each and every one must be aware of the risks which they create for others by their actions or failure to act. Individuals are responsible for compliance with laws and regulations, while the developers of the system must ensure that the system as a whole is safe. Developers of the system primarily include the authorities that are responsible for building and maintaining roads, vehicle manufacturers, transport operators who transport goods and passengers on a commercial basis, as well as politicians, the legislature, the judiciary, and the police. This systemic view in Vision Zero is perhaps the most important change as compared to the previous view, which considered individual road users to bear the primary responsibility.

The German Road Safety Council cannot pass legislation, and it does not build roads or vehicles. However, it can make demands with regard to these points. Together with its member organizations, the DVR has developed the following list of ten top measures to be implemented by government, municipalities, and industry. The DVR is convinced that these measures will rapidly reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries due to road accidents. Some of these measures will take some time, whereas others can be rapidly implemented.

Increase in Targeted Traffic Enforcement

  • Appropriate improvement of the financial and personnel resources of the police and the corresponding state organizations, including improved training

  • Increased prevention and prosecution of traffic violations by means of better cooperation between authorities

  • Implementation of model trials with section control (a speed control system that measures the average speed of vehicles over a road section of typically 2 km or more)

Adaptation of Maximum Speeds

  • Reduction of the maximum speed on rural roads with widths up to and including 6 m to 80 km/h

  • Enforcement of overtaking prohibitions on rural roads in areas with restricted visibility for overtaking

  • Implementation of trials for the reduction of urban speed limits from 50 to 30 km/h

  • Introduce general speed limits for all vehicles on German motorways; promote the expansion of intelligent traffic systems

Prevention of Accidents with Trees

  • Design of roadsides of rural roads without obstructions

  • In the case of existing trees, increased use of passive protection in critical areas

  • Reduction of the maximum speed limit for tree-lined roads and efficient monitoring of compliance

Improvement of Safety for Motorcyclists

  • Extensive implementation of the information leaflet for improvement of the road infrastructure for motorcyclists (MVMot 2018) in all federal states

  • Improvement of the visibility of motorcyclists

Increased Safety Through Improvements of the Infrastructure

  • Consistent application of proven infrastructure measures

  • Ensurance of the use of the instruments of road safety inspections, accident commission, auditing of the status quo, and safety audits

  • Improvement of safety at intersections, road junctions, and roundabouts

Promotion of Driver Assistance Systems, Automation, and Networked Driving

  • Consistent promotion and installation of safety-enhancing driver assistance systems in vehicles

  • Utilization of the proven safety potentials of automated driving functions and networked driving

Increased Safety for Pedestrians and Cyclists

  • Improvement of the infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists

  • Improvement of the visibility of pedestrians and cyclists

  • Promotion of helmets for cyclists and riders of electric bicycles

  • Development and mandatory use of turning assistance systems

  • Promotion of the “Dutch Reach”

Prevention of Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol and Drugs

  • Enforcement of the prohibition of driving under the influence of alcohol

  • Introduction of alcohol interlock programs

  • Introduction of a traffic offence for cyclists with a blood alcohol level of more than 1.1

Improved Qualification of Novice Drivers

  • Promotion of the accompanied driving scheme

  • Introduction of mandatory extensions of learning times for novice drivers

  • Development and mandatory introduction of a curriculum for driver training

Reduction of Hazards Due to Distractions

  • Promotion of a change in behavior in the use of information and communication systems (including smartphones)

  • Exploitation of all technical options for reducing risks due to distractions

Political Implementation (Guido Zielke BMVI)

Since the 1950s, traffic trends in Germany have been heading in one direction only – upward. With the fall of the “Iron Curtain” and German reunification, this trend was given a further boost. Thus, for instance, freight traffic on German roads increased by over 27% from 2000 to 2010. In the same period, there was a rise of over 6% in the volume of private motorized transport.

An end to this trend is not in sight. The Federal Ministry of Transport’s traffic forecast predicted an increase in road haulage by 39% from 2010 to 2030, and at the same time an increase by 10% of passenger traffic. This seems to become true, judging by current trends. In the last ten years alone, the number of motor vehicles in Germany has increased by around 14%.

However, in spite of the increased intensity of road traffic, German road safety has improved considerably. The federal government, federal states, and local authorities have for decades undertaken major and successful action to reduce the number of people killed and severely injured. In 1970, over 21,300 people lost their lives on the roads, whereas that figure had fallen to 3,046 by 2019. That is a drop of more than 85%.

This success in improving road traffic in spite of intensified traffic has been based on two working principles: First, concentrating on measures whose effectiveness have been proved by academia and, secondly, focusing on what is most likely to be successful. An example can show what this means. Newly qualified drivers are by their very nature a high-risk group, not just in Germany. In many cases, the risk inherent in being a novice driver is compounded by the risk inherent in being a young person. In other words, they are involved in far more fatal accidents than what would be assumed given their share of the population. It was thus obvious that there was a requirement for action here. One approach to solving the problem was to lengthen the learning phase of normal driver training.

However, although driving schools are naturally keen to sell more driving lessons, many young people cannot afford them. So, what about parents and other experienced drivers helping out by acting as lay instructors? As an incentive to allow themselves to be accompanied while driving, a kind of “advanced driving license” could be obtained earlier. However, the minimum age of 18 years for driving unaccompanied would remain unchanged. That was the idea.

In 2004, the first trial schemes for what was known as “accompanied driving from seventeen” were launched. The Federal Highway Research Institute evaluated the trials and reached an opinion that, for academics, was surprisingly unanimous. In the first year of unaccompanied driving, drivers who had taken part in the scheme were involved in 17% fewer accidents and committed 15% fewer traffic offences. If mileage is taken into account, the risk of being involved in an accident fell by 22% and the risk of being caught committing a traffic offence fell by 20%. In purely mathematical terms, the scheme prevented around 1,700 personal injury accidents in 2009.

Following this unambiguous outcome, the Federal Ministry of Transport acted. Since 1 January 2011, accompanied driving from 17 has been part of permanent legislation. Participation in the “Accompanied Driving” scheme is voluntary and has to be explicitly applied for. The normal minimum age at which a driving license can be obtained remains 18  years. The scheme has been a continuous success story, as the academic study predicted. The federal government and the federal states have now joined forces in an attempt to encourage more young people who wish to drive unaccompanied as soon as they reach the age of 18 to participate in the “Accompanied Driving” scheme.

Thus, the academic-based approach and the concentration on the most important fields of action have proved very successful. This is also the approach that the Federal Ministry of Transport applies in developing a new vision for the future of road safety activities in Germany.

On the global level, the 2010s were declared the “Decade of Action for Road Safety” in the “Moscow Declaration.” The European Commission followed suit with its “Policy Orientations on Road Safety 2011-2020.” Both documents contained an undertaking to halve the number of road deaths. The EU’s long-term goal is now to move close to zero fatalities by 2050. Its third Mobility Package set the interim target to reduce the number of road deaths by 50% between 2020 and 2030. In the “Valletta Declaration,” Germany, along with the other EU Member States, expressed its support of this target. Given what has already been achieved, the efforts involved in achieving further reductions will increase disproportionately as each further advance is made. There are no easy solutions any more.

The federal government is leading the way in the work to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on German roads. In its new road safety program, which covers the period from 2021 to 2030, it will set out measures that are within its remit. However, an important lesson from the past ten years is that is it not sufficient for each of the federal government, federal states, and local authorities to consider only its own measures. The new vision for the future of road safety is therefore linking together all stakeholders in jointly establishing the overarching objectives and determining the specific fields of action. This gives rise to effective measures that complement and build on one another. Against this background, the federal government is currently compiling its own measures in the next road safety program, which will cover the period from 2021 to 2030. The federal states and local authorities are also engaged in similar processes. This approach was supported in the 2018 Coalition Agreement, in which the federal government committed to Vision Zero in the medium term. Vision Zero refers to a shared responsibility. The German aspiration is to bring all parts of society together in the interests of common road safety activities and to unite them in a common strategy with a common vision. This includes the federal government, federal states, local authorities, and all other key stakeholders in road safety. Towns and cities, in particular, are key players, especially with regard to vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. Trade associations, industry, and individual businesses can also make most valuable contributions.

The fields of action on which all road safety stakeholders in Germany agree include to tackle accident blackspots and to address all road users. Important measures are improving the road safety of cyclists, pedestrians, and the elderly, and mitigating the effects of accidents. It will also be necessary to deal with the increasing automation of motor vehicle traffic, as well as other megatrends, such as the digital revolution, globalization, and connectivity, which are transforming society, and thus also mobility. Each field of action can be bolstered by far-reaching measures taken by different players. The objective is to enhance road safety in each field of action by means of measures that are dovetailed as closely as possible and complement one another in the spheres of infrastructure, automotive engineering, or human behavior. With regard to safe cycling, for instance, the infrastructure at junctions is crucially important. Another infrastructure challenge is the increasing speed of cycles as a result of electric mobility. As far as the objective of preventing accidents involving turning vehicles is concerned, the focus will continue to be on the use and the developments in the field of automotive engineering. At the same time, there will consistently be a need to adapt the law governing road user behavior, for instance, to cover new forms of mobility such as the electric scooter. The objective is to decouple the trend in the accident and casualty figures from the desired trend in the volume of cycling as an ecological, active, and modern form of mobility. In the field of cycling, greater consideration has to be given not only to actual objective risks but also to cyclists’ subjective feeling of safety. This is just one example of how broad-based and complex the measures involved in a field of action can be.

With the specific fields of action, Germany is breaking new ground in addressing target groups and issues. In addition, the federal government is increasingly focusing on improving the measurability of road safety. In the next decades, new indicators will be added to existing ones, such as the seat belt wearing rate and the percentage of cyclists wearing helmets. In addition to indicators relating to the vehicle fleet and the infrastructure, an indicator of road user culture will be developed. The new measures will provide information on the effectiveness of different measures that the current official accident statistics does not deliver. This approach represents the continuation of the course of action practiced for years of a road safety policy based on evidence and academic research.

The new vision for the future of road safety in Germany will also bring another new feature. Supported by additional data produced in part by the new indicators, the federal government will conceive its road safety program as a living system. If we think of the electric scooter or automated and connected driving, it becomes clear that the changes to our mobility are occurring at an increasingly rapid pace. The German Federal Government wishes to be able to take action at any time to promote Vision Zero. Necessary adaptations of the measures are to be continuously reviewed. The guiding principle that every fatality is one too many will not only be confirmed but also receive new impetus in the new decade as a result of the actions described above.

Research for Safe Cities (Clemens Klinke DEKRA)

For almost 100 years, DEKRA, the German Motor Vehicle Inspection Association (Deutscher Kraftfahrzeug-Überwachungsverein), has been working for safety on the road. This is the purpose for which it was founded in 1925, and it still has not changed. Although the scope of DEKRA’s efforts for a safe world has widened over the decades, improving road safety is still – and will continue to be – its central objective. Its major purpose is to help all stakeholders in road safety with concrete recommendations for improvements and solutions. DEKRA was one of the first signatories of the European Road Safety Charter, and it has supported Vision Zero from the beginning.

Some have argued that Vision Zero is a utopia, an illusion, a goal that cannot realistically be reached. While this should never be an argument for not even trying, DEKRA’s approach has been that like other major projects, Vision Zero should start with first steps. What if every institution concerned with road safety set their own “small” target? For example, should not a trucking company set the target for itself to get through the year without any crashes involving physical injury? Should not a regional council strive to reduce the number of crashes, tackling one accident black spot at a time? The combination of all such targets would take us gradually closer to Vision Zero. The 2014 DEKRA Road Safety Report specifically focused on urban mobility and asked the question: Would Vision Zero be achievable within the comparatively manageable framework of one town or one city? (DEKRA Road Safety Report 2014 Urban Mobility, Strategies for preventing accidents on European roads, Stuttgart (Germany), 2014 – available from www.dekra-roadsafety.com)

DEKRA Accident Research, working closely with members of the OECD’s International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group (IRTAD), has been analyzing crash statistics from towns and cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. The figures from the years 2009 to 2012 for 17 European countries showed even then that no less than 48% of the 971 towns and cities with over 50,000 inhabitants had achieved the goal of no road fatalities in at least one year. Among them were also larger cities with a population of more than 100,000 or even 200,000. The conclusion in the 2014 DEKRA Road Safety Report was that, although there is still quite some distance to go in order to achieve Vision Zero as a whole, there were millions of Europeans already living in towns and cities without any deaths caused by road crashes in built-up areas.

To make this fact known, an interactive online map was created, which has been updated and expanded over the past years with more and more data. (DEKRA Vision Zero Interactive Map, www.dekra-vision-zero.com) Today, it features 26 countries, with its scope expanded beyond Europe to include data from, among others, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the USA. Of the 2,975 cities analyzed worldwide, a total of 1,197 – or 40% – have achieved the goal of zero road fatalities at least in one year since 2009.

With the interactive map, users can filter results by country, by city population, by calendar year, by the number of zero years, or any combination of these criteria, giving in-depth insight into the degree to which Vision Zero, in terms of road deaths, is being achieved in cities around the world.

Results vary considerably from region to region and from country to country. In Mexico, the share of “zero cities” is just 6%, in Japan it is a little over 20%, in the USA 24%, and in Australia some 28%. The European picture looks better, as a whole, with 68 % of cities over 50,000 inhabitants having achieved zero road fatalities at least once. While in some European countries the percentages are comparable to those in the USA or Japan, there are others where a very large majority of 50,000+ cities have already been successful – e.g., the UK (68%), Switzerland (70%), France (75%), Germany (79%), Spain (83%), the Netherlands (86%), and Sweden (95%). The percentages are based on available data within the period from 2009 to 2018 or 2019, respectively.

Many cities have achieved zero road fatalities more than once, 147 of them even in six or more years. The largest share of these cities is to be found in Europe, but also Mexico (1), Japan (1), and the USA (3), among others, have cities with six or more zero years. Among the “zero cities” around the world, there are almost 270 with a population over 100,000 and almost 40 with a population over 200,000.

By far the largest city with one zero year is Gothenburg (Sweden) with almost 550,000 inhabitants. Other large cities who have reached the goal at least once are Espoo (Finland), Aachen (Germany), Granada (Spain), Rennes (France), Jerez de la Frontera (Spain), and Mainz (Germany). The UK has a particularly large number of “zero cities” with a population of over 200,000, e.g., Nottingham, Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton and Hove, Reading and Northampton, as well as the London Boroughs of Wandsworth and Bexley. Most of the successful 200,000+ “zero cities” are European, but some can also be found in other world regions, such as Fuchu (Japan), Buenavista (Mexico), and Oxnard (California, the USA).

To honor especially successful cities for achieving zero road crash fatalities, and to draw attention to Vision Zero as a concept, the DEKRA Vision Zero Award has been presented every year since 2016 to a city with a string of zero years. Recipients so far have been Kerpen (Germany, 6 zero years in a row), Torrejón de Ardoz (Spain, 7), Bad Homburg (Germany, 8), Lüdenscheid (Germany, 7), and, most recently, Siero (Spain) with no less than 11 “zero years.”

The award recipients, as well as almost 1,200 other towns and cities around the world, are testament to the fact that, 20 years after its conception, Vision Zero can by no means be called an illusion or a utopia never to be reached. Of course, it has not yet been completely turned into reality. However, the analysis shows that the goal can be achieved within an urban context and is in fact already being achieved year after year in hundreds of cities across the globe.

This should provide extra motivation among all road safety stakeholders not to give up their efforts to edge ever closer to Vision Zero. This applies to cities that have not yet been able to register any zero years, as well as nonurbanized areas in other contexts of traffic. It also includes going beyond road deaths to also cover severe injuries.

In the future, automation will play an ever-increasing part in our vehicles and in traffic as a whole. Some have claimed that given the high share of crashes caused by human error, automated driving will be the solution of all road safety problems. This might seem plausible at first glance – however, things will probably not be just as simple as that. No doubt, automated driving has the potential to help avoiding accidents and to reduce the number of deaths and severe injuries on our roads. Sensor technology as well as vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication can play out their strengths where human drivers might reach their limits. However, automation will only be beneficial if both the vehicle itself and its communication with other vehicles or the surroundings work reliably throughout its life cycle. This needs to be monitored and tested independently.

In the past and up to today, human drivers have been tested and regulated: They need a driver’s license, they are restricted in terms of alcohol consumption and other factors, and professional drivers are required to undergo regular further training and tests. At least the same degree of thoroughness will have to be applied to testing and regulating the “virtual driver,” i.e., systems of automated driving, if we do not want to compromise road safety. This will have to be part of the homologation of new vehicles, as well as periodical technical inspections (PTI). In both these processes, systems of automated driving will have to undergo in-depth checks to make sure they work safely. DEKRA and other organizations have made the case that, especially for PTI, inspectors need to have independent and unfiltered access to vehicle data relevant for the inspection. Building the legal framework for this will be one of the major tasks for regulators in the coming years.

With regard to automated driving, road safety is at a crossroads, so to speak. If handled sensibly and responsibly by all parties concerned, automation has the potential to improve road safety quite significantly. If decision-makers let things slide, however, automated driving can be rather counterproductive and predominantly create new dangers. Nobody advocating Vision Zero should be willing to let this happen .

Munich: A City on Its Way to Vision Zero (Matthias Mück and Martin Schreiner, Mobility Department, City of Munich)

Munich is a rapidly growing city with around 1.5 million inhabitants. Its surroundings have a population of around 3 million people. The road safety level is close to the national average: 46.000 accidents took place in 2018, 17 persons died, 619 were seriously injured, and 5.891 slightly injured. To improve this situation, the Munich City Council decided (on the recommendation of the municipal road administration) on April 25, 2018, to adopt the Vision Zero according to the recommendations of the German Road Safety Council (Deutscher Verkehrssicherheitsrat) as the official fundament and strategic goal of the road safety work of the City of Munich. This decision included the political mandate to develop an ambitious program improving and modernizing the municipal road safety work fundamentally. Essential basis for this challenge was an expert’s report compiled by PTV Transport Consult GmbH, and supported by the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. Both analyzed the current road safety work in detail and developed comprehensive recommendations to improve it. This measure had been subject to several city council decisions in 2019, including the allocation of resources for its long-term implementation. The most important action fields and measures are:

Improvement of the Data Basis

One key element of the Vision Zero implementation is the improvement of the accident data analysis by using new software products. As of now, police accident data can be analyzed in detail according to accident severity, type, location, and constellation of accidents, but also combined with several further criteria, such as time, weather, or specific target groups. This creates conditions for a more thorough local accident analysis and for the development and implementation of specific and effective measures.

This software is also able to combine accident data with further traffic and infrastructure data, allowing the identification of risk areas within the existing road network that are in need of preventive measures. Additionally, the evaluation of planned infrastructure measures with respect to expected accident consequences is an essential innovation to consider road safety issues at a very early planning stage of networks, sections, and all kinds of infrastructure.

A weakness of the current data analysis is that only accidents registered by the police are used. This excludes accidents that are not registered by the police, but only by, e.g., hospitals or insurance companies. Therefore, the City of Munich launched a pilot project in cooperation with hospitals and insurance companies to investigate the high number of unreported accidents (especially in cycling), which is still a largely unknown field of road safety.

Systematic Mitigation of Accident Black Spots

In addition to the activities of the municipal accident commission that intervenes after fatal accidents or noticeable accumulations of accidents at specific locations, the 50 most dangerous intersections will be identified in regular rotation and monitored in the abovementioned data analysis with up-to-date police accident data. They will be subject to mitigation measures that may include speed reduction and optimized traffic control, as well as a complete reconstruction of crossings in order to obtain clear sight lines and a more understandable road design.

To highlight one important example: Turning accidents are a dominant accident type, especially at intersections. At this point the administration itself serves as a model. Currently, 90% of all municipal trucks have turning assistance systems to prevent turning accidents with cyclists and pedestrians. In addition, subcontractors using trucks are bound by contract to have such a system.

Strong Prevention Work

Prevention is a crucial pillar in the Munich road safety work and necessary requirement for the successful implementation of the Vision Zero concept. Within the first years we prioritize our prevention work on clear focus areas with a high safety potential.

  • Setup of a safety audit entity: Main objective is to evaluate every infrastructure plan by a certified road safety auditor to ensure the involvement of road safety aspects in the earliest possible stage of infrastructure planning. Furthermore, the systematic evaluation of existing infrastructure concerning road safety aspects will be also part of the foreseen audit entity. Therefore, we will hire and train extra staff in the near future.

  • Implementation of safety performance indicators (SPIs) : The assessment of the road safety situation, as well as its development on the basis of casualties and/or accidents, is not without problems. Accidents are influenced by a number of factors (e.g., weather effects) and these influences can also overlap. Hence, assessing the causal relationship between road safety measures and the occurrence of accidents is limited. This also applies to the timeline. Certain measures might show their effects only after a longer period of time. Safety performance indicators reflect a mediating level between road safety measures and the final result of road safety efforts in the form of accidents, injuries, or fatalities. In 2021 the City of Munich will develop first suitable indicators (i.e., speed measurements to determine the effectiveness of speed limits) to ensure comprehensive measure evaluation.

  • Public relations: A permanent road safety campaign will be implemented in 2021 as part of an overall communication concept for promoting sustainable mobility. The road safety campaign will focus on special topics, such as collisions between a cyclist and a motor vehicle’s door, but also on general issues such as a more respectful behavior on the road and a more relaxed collective spirit. It will be combined with a city-wide target group–oriented information, consulting, motivation, and training program. Main focus groups are vulnerable groups like school children and elderly people.

    Safety on the way to school: A new digital portal for planning safe ways to school is available since the end of 2020. The portal provides information about school locations, school districts, signalized intersections, and the positions of available assistants on the way to school, helping school children crossing the street.

Fortunately, the Munich City Council did not only approve the Vision Zero as the new official strategic objective, it also launched a concrete implementation program and provided necessary resources. Altogether 15 new jobs in road safety have been created, and a yearly budget of 2.5 million Euros was established. Moreover, programs and resources in other fields of activity within the mobility sector will focus more on road safety.

There are four major reasons why Munich was able to implement this ambitious Vision Zero program.

  1. 1.

    Motivated, competent, and personally engaged people in the city administration with good contacts to science, consultancy, and policy. They prepared the topic in the background over several years and took any arising opportunity.

  2. 2.

    The City of Munich had excellent consultants, who worked out the foundations of the described concept.

  3. 3.

    In 2016 the Department of Safety and Public Order got a new head, who put road safety very high on his agenda.

  4. 4.

    Finally, and unfortunately, some very serious accidents occurred. Following media reports and public pressure also prepared the ground for a resolute political decision.

Main task in the upcoming two to three years will be to get this program fully started. Specialists have to be employed, software has to be fully implemented, and trainings have to be conducted. New working structures and processes have to be implemented. External support has to be organized. Considering the very special environment of a public administration, the high number of tasks in a rapidly growing city like Munich, and the high expectations of politicians and the public, the implementation of Vision Zero is a major challenge. That is why the City of Munich systematically seeks for external cooperation and support, especially for a close exchange of experiences with comparable cities and interested institutions .

The Need for Technology Assessment: E-scooters as an Example (Kurt Bodewig DVW)

The Need for Technology Assessment: E-scooters as an Example

Technology assessment (TA) originated in the 1960s in the USA. It “serves to identify and evaluate the consequences of the use of technology for society through scientific analysis. It is concerned with the systematic identification and assessment of technical, environmental, economic, social, cultural and psychological effects that are associated with the development, production, use and exploitation of technologies. The idea of TA is to be able to anticipate in advance the consequences of technical actions and thus to make the thorny path of trial and error at least less painful, if not to avoid it completely.” (Wirtschaftslexikon24.com 2018 p.1.) Within the framework of the policy of humanizing work, technology assessment was also applied in Germany in the beginning of the 1970s. Scientists and TA institutions in Europe have joined forces to form the European Technology Assessment Group (ETAG). Since 2005, ETAG has supported corresponding technology assessment projects on behalf of the European Parliament for the STOA Committee (Science and Technology Options Assessment) since 2005. In Germany, this task is carried out by the Office of Technology Assessment (TAB) at the German Bundestag.

Technology assessment is important for many political decisions. Especially with a strategy of Vision Zero, every change in the mobility system should be precisely analyzed for its effects and checked in terms of Vision Zero. This is exemplified by the introduction of electric micro-vehicles on urban streets and roads of Germany.

In urban agglomerations, there is a high volume of traffic. For this reason, mobility offers must be expanded to provide alternatives, especially for users of private cars. In addition to bicycles, so-called micromobility is seen as a solution, whereby commuters, for example, leave their cars at home and cover the “first and last mile,” i.e., the journey from home to public transport and from public transport to work, with a much smaller and more economical vehicle. This is the role of the e-scooter, a battery-powered, single-track vehicle with a handrail. Its approval in the Federal Republic of Germany was published in the Federal Gazette (Federal Gazette Part I 2019 No. 21) on June 14, 2019, by the Electric Micro-Vehicles Ordinance (eKFV). It came into force on June 15, 2019. (Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz – Bundesamt für Justiz: Verordnung über die Teilnahme von Elektrokleinstfahrzeugen am Straßenverkehr (Elektrokleinstfahrzeuge-Verordnung – eKFV)) With this decision, the prerequisites were created for electric micro-vehicles with steering or holding rods to participate in road traffic. The vehicles must be equipped with two independent brakes, a lighting system, and an acoustic warning device (bell). The drive power must not exceed 500 W, and the maximum driving speed is 20 kph. For operation in Germany, the vehicles must have a general operating permit from the Federal Motor Transport Authority (Kraftfahrtbundesamt, KBA). In addition, users must take out liability insurance and affix an appropriate insurance plate to the vehicle. The allowed traffic areas are cycle paths and roads, and the minimum age is 14 years. The use is also subject to further regulations for driving vehicles, such as strict restrictions against driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

Despite criticism of individual regulations, the road safety associations agreed unanimously to the proposed approval on the basis of its risk/opportunity assessment. A draft ordinance was introduced into the legislative procedure just one month later. It was weakened in terms of road safety, in ways that significantly increased the potential danger. At the hearing in the German Parliament (Bundestag), criticism was correspondingly strong. Although negative experiences from other countries, including road deaths, serious injuries, greatly increased aggression, and displeasure in the population, were pointed out, they had no discernible effect on the federal government. Following protests by the DVR and DVW and other associations, some attempts to weaken safety rules, such as the planned use on footpaths and lowering of the age of use to 12 years, were withdrawn in consultations with the states.

However, the technology assessments of the Federal Highway Research Institute (BAST) were not sufficiently taken into account. Parliamentary technology assessment was not carried out because the regulation did not require a parliamentary decision. A proposal by traffic safety associations to require drivers to be suitable to drive motor vehicles was rejected. It would have led to a minimum age of 15 years and to a requirement of proven knowledge of the rules of the road, shown, for example, by means of a moped license. Since this proposal was not adopted, the current legislation allows 14-year-olds to drive a motor vehicle without special requirements.

The exact regulations for the introduction of electric micro-vehicles were not sufficiently communicated to the public in advance, and there was widespread ignorance of which e-scooters were allowed and how they could be used. There were already many privately owned electric micro-vehicles that did not have a permit and were therefore not allowed on public roads. Many believed that they were legalized by the regulation, and so vehicles without handlebars, sometimes self-balancing, were driven, often on pavements and at considerably more than 25 kph, without insurance coverage.

Vehicles that complied with the technical regulations were not privately owned at first but were offered by rental companies in large cities and in large numbers. In Berlin alone, six national and international suppliers of e-scooters were represented by the end of 2019. Since Berlin had not set an upper limit like other large cities, after half a year there were more than 15,000 scooters in the city area, mainly near the center.

The number of users was correspondingly high, and after 6 months of registration of e-scooters in Germany, there was a massive deterioration in the traffic climate and an increase in the number of accidents with injured people, some of which were seriously injured, an extremely high increase in alcohol offences and a massive increase in rule violations. This was confirmed in accident reports from the police and in news media.

  • In Berlin, 176 traffic accidents were registered by the police from the introduction of the e-scooters until September 30, 2019, alone. In these accidents 131 people were injured, 21 of them seriously. By October 16, there were more than 1,200 proceedings concerning traffic violations in connection with e-scooters. In 108 cases the drivers were under the influence of alcohol, in 22 cases under the influence of other drugs. In addition, by the end of November 2019, there were more than 1,200 reports of incorrectly parked e-scooters in the Berlin-Mitte district alone. Almost all of these were violations of the road traffic regulations.

  • In North Rhine-Westphalia, a total of 116 accidents have been recorded since the official permit for e-scooters was issued. Almost 1,500 administrative offences have been registered.

  • In the Saxon state capital of Dresden, e-scooters are now responsible for more than half of all alcohol offences on the road. Between August and October 2019, the authorities counted 217 offences committed by e-scooter drivers involving alcohol.

  • By the end of 2019, the police in Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia, had reported almost 170 cases of scooters being driven under the influence of alcohol. One in two of these cases was a criminal offence with over 1.1 per mille. Sixteen people had been caught under the influence of drugs.

  • A sanction was imposed by the district court of Hanover against an e-scooter driver (age 22) for drunk driving. The young man had driven through the pedestrian zone with 1.2 permille. He lost his driving license and has to pay an additional penalty of 1,250 €.

    • MDR (20.12.2019): “E-Scooter in Mitteldeutschland-Viele Alkoholverstöße und Unfälle mit E-Rollern”

    • WDR (09.01.2020): “Schwerverletzte bei E-Scooter-Unfällen in NRW”

    • RBB (12.11.2019): “Rund 15.000 E-Scooter rollen durch”

    • Berlin- Tagespiegel (20.11.2019): “Mehr als 1200 Anzeigen in Berlin-Mitte gegen E-Scooter”

    • dpa/Redaktionsnetzwerk Dtschl.- RND (12.01.2020): “Studie: E-Scooter Unfälle führen oft zu Kopfverletzungen” [USA]

    • UDV-Blog (08.07.2019): “E-Tretroller: Laufen lassen oder intervenieren?”

These breaches of the rules not only lead to administrative costs, but also threaten the safety and protection of people, especially the drivers themselves, and also crowded pedestrians with injuries that are often more severe for elderly people. Statistically, e-scooter accidents are not recorded separately.

According to a newspaper article, serious head and face injuries occur, especially when alcohol is involved. This was reported by Marc Schult, a chief physician at the Clinic for Trauma Surgery, Hand Surgery, and Orthopedics in Hanover: “According to my observations,” he said, “the number of pedestrian accidents is currently higher for e-scooters than for bicycles. Since mid-September we have treated around 50 patients in my clinic alone.” Typical injuries in e-scooter accidents are fractures of the wrist, elbow, and ankle. “In the case of drunken drivers, we find more serious injuries, in particular craniocerebral trauma and fractures of facial bones, such as the nose, zygomatic bone or jaw.” Schult pleads for compulsory wearing of helmets to reduce the dangerous head injuries.

This is confirmed in a recent study from the USA published in the medical journal Jama Surgery. (“Jama Surgery” 2019, dpa 11.01.2020) It showed that the number of injuries and hospital admissions after accidents with e-scooters has increased dramatically. About a third of the patients suffered head trauma, twice as many head injuries as cyclists in the USA. More than a quarter suffered fractures, similarly frequent bruises and abrasions, and one in seven suffered cuts. The authors of the study admit that there is probably a high number of unreported accidents. They strongly recommend a helmet, since only 2–5% of the users, which were treated in hospitals, wore a head protection and whoever provides e-scooters should promote helmets and make them more accessible.

In addition to accidents, there are other effects, such as the increasing aggression in the traffic climate due to the reckless behavior of e-scooter drivers, who crowd pedestrians and leave the vehicle on sidewalks. Pedestrians, especially old and disabled people, are left with a feeling of insecurity. At the parliament’s hearing, the German Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted rightly warned of the dangers.

Since January 1, 2020, the involvement of e-scooters has been separately assessed and recorded when reporting accidents. This is the first time that valid data on perpetrators, victims, and serious consequences of accidents have been collected. The police, who have already recorded e-scooter accidents in various regions, now produce these reports according to a uniform system.

The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) published first statistical data for 2020. There were 2,155 accidents recorded throughout Germany involving e-scooters, which harmed people. Most of them caused slight injuries, 386 people were seriously injured, and 5 e-scooter-users lost their lives. In comparison to other vehicles these numbers seem to be less alarming but keeping the special conditions of e-scooters in mind, there is a reason for worrying. We assume that there is a higher number of unreported incidents and the e-scooters are a rather new form of mobility with fewer vehicles in use. Also due to the Corona pandemic in 2020 significantly less tourists visited cities, who are the main target group for the rental services. This made the rental companies to reduce their fleets temporally. It means, we have to presume, that under “normal” conditions and development the number of accidents would be a lot higher.

But from these data we could already see that there is a higher accident risk for e-scooter users in comparison to bicycles, which are the nearest group of road users. They both are unprotected, traveling with a similar speed, use the same road types such as bike lanes, and do not make any kind of driving license necessary. E-scooters also injure more often other persons – especially pedestrians – involved in relevant accidents than cyclists do.

One of the reasons is that e-scooter users violate important regulations more often, which is also attributed to the special circumstances of the rental system. It aims predominantly to a spontaneous decision to drive – mainly by tourists. We guess that they are less experienced in safely driving the scooters and/or there is an ignorance of the local regulations such as the prohibition to use the sidewalk. Some want to save money while renting and use the vehicles with two person or they carry heavy luggage. Especially party-seeking tourists see the rental system as an opportunity to manage shorter distances faster than by foot and more convenient than using the public transport – while anything else but sober. Most frequent cause of accident in 2020 was the influence of alcohol in about 18% of the cases. Furthermore, visitors are not equipped with protective gear as a helmet and rental companies do not provide them.

These indications contrast with the usage of e-scooters in everyday life and regular frequency like for commuters. Here we expect another age structure, more driving experience, more reasonable and right behavior, higher potential for using a helmet, etc. So, there is an appropriate implementation of e-scooters, if we use it as a replenishment to our mobility to ease traffic congestion while keeping sustainability in mind.

With these findings, a (lesser) form of TA will be carried out retrospectively. Whether and when these findings will lead to a necessary change in the legal situation is not yet foreseeable.

All this could have been avoided with an appropriate technology assessment. We can learn this from the experience of technology assessment in Montreal (Canada). When Montreal was faced with the decision whether to approve e-scooters, a technology impact assessment was carried out. It was based on a pilot project in which rental of e-scooters was allowed on a limited scale.

The evaluation of the pilot project showed that hardly any e-scooter driver adhered to the traffic rules. An extra police unit would be needed to cope with the many rule violations. Although the drivers were required to wear a helmet, almost none of them did so. In 80% of the cases, the e-scooter driver finished the rental by parking the e-scooter illegally. Based on this real experience and its scientific evaluation, it was decided not to perform any additional pilot projects. The small electric vehicles were again banished from the cityscape again. Instead, it was decided to improve the supply of rental bicycles and to introduce additional licenses for e-bike rentals. The resulting income will be reinvested in the city’s bicycle traffic infrastructure. (CTV News Montreal Wednesday, February 19, 2020.)

The design of the e-scooters results in high demands on safe handling. At the same time, the rental system means that many people are on the road for the first time without having practiced before. For this reason, the Deutsche Verkehrswacht (German Road Safety Association), with the support of the Federal Ministry of Transport, has included the topic in one of its target group programs and offered to give test courses.

The e-scooter is a sensible means of mobility for the journey between home and daily employment in order to bridge the so-called “last mile.” Either in the combination of bus and train with e-scooter locations at stops and stations as a rental system or transportation in public vehicles, such as subways or regional trains or in buses. This also allows helmets to be carried, but also requires specific solutions. However, in order to avoid hazards, the carriage of electric vehicles in public transport buses is subject to special conditions. Only if the criteria for taking e-scooters on public buses are met, it is possible to transport them safely in local public transport vehicles. This should also be part of a TA.

Public platforms such as JELBI, which connects different rental platforms with Public Transport in Berlin, uses an app to sell tickets and rent complementary micro-electric vehicles for individual mobility chains. By the obligatory proof of the driving license for the receipt of the app access is also, e.g., the proof of the driving rules knowledge necessary for traffic safety reasons likewise documented.

Furthermore, the DVW advocates the following measures:

Cities that allow e-scooters will have to put stringent demands on providers of e-scooter rental. Reasonable measures to reduce accident risks include:

  • A prohibition to park e-scooters outside of clearly defined parking spaces. This is needed to avoid accident risks for pedestrians.

  • In order to make effective traffic-safety prosecution possible, rental companies should be required to collect the necessary user data and make them available to the law enforcement.

  • Helmets should be mandatory in order to prevent severe head and brain trauma.

  • The police must enforce compliance by building appropriate capacities (including building or expanding police bike teams).

  • Alcohol controls, also with a focus on e-scooters, must become part of police activities. Previous cases of drunk e-scooter driving clearly show the necessity.

  • The infrastructure needs to be significantly improved and expanded in order to reduce competition between cyclists and e-scooters.

  • The technical equipment of e-scooters needs to be improved, among other things, by bindingly equipping future single-track, standing miniature electric vehicles with direction indicators.

  • Other vehicle classes that pose a higher risk, such as self-balancing micro-electric vehicles or vehicles without a handrail, have to be banned.

  • Additional scientific data are required to target accidents. The federal government should commission its research institution (BASt) to provide this data.

  • All of this must be accompanied by road safety prevention that offers training for safe use and critically monitors developments.

In conclusion, if a sound technology assessment had been carried out prior to the entry into force of the regulation on the electric micro-vehicles, the current situation with serious accidents and chaos in the inner cities of urban and tourist centers could have been avoided. The procedure practiced in Germany in this case, with a draft bill being approved without a prior technology assessment, is the opposite of an action in the sense of the “Vision Zero” commitment. This should be a warning to all. When a new mobility element is introduced, a technology assessment must be carried out .