Can safety of cyclists be improved with intelligent transport systems?

In recent years, the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) have assisted in the decrease of road traffic fatalities, particularly amongst passenger car occupants. Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) such as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and moped riders, however, have not been that much in focus when developing ITS. Therefore there is a clear need for ITS which specifically address VRUs as an integrated element of the traffic system. This paper presents the results of a quantitative safety impact assessment of 5 systems which were estimated to have high potential to improve the safety of cyclists, namely: Blind Spot De-tection (BSD), Bicycle to Vehicle communication (B2V), Intersection safety (INS), Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection System + Emergency Braking (PCDS+EBR) and VRU Beacon System (VBS). An ex-ante assessment method has been suggested by Kulmala [1] to provide traffic safety im-pacts of ITS. The method has been used in expert assessments of ITS for cars. The same ap-proach was applied and further developed to assess the safety impacts of ITS specifically de-signed for VRUs. The main results of the assessment showed that all investigated systems affect safety of cy-clists in a positive way by preventing fatalities and injuries. The estimates considering 2012 ac-cident data and full penetration showed that the highest effects could be obtained by the im-plementation of PCDS+EBR and B2V whereas VBS had the lowest effect. The estimated yearly reduction in cyclist fatalities in EU-28 varied between 77 and 286 per system. A forecast for 2030, taking into accounts the estimated accident trends and penetration rates, showed the highest effects for PCDS+EBR and BSD.