How has FERSI developed these past years?
Traditionally, FERSI has been an advocate for road safety research and a network for road safety research organisations. Shortly after I started as president, I asked the members what they valued most. Their answer was unanimous: the network! So, in the past years FERSI and its meetings have become increasingly content-focused with, to name a few: ‘focal point presentations’, working groups on topics like infrastructure and cycling, exchanging international practices about pertinent national issues, taking turns in writing columns. Of course, Ingrid van Schagen (FERSI’s Secretary) and I have also been to Brussels to advise on road safety and to get the most relevant topics in the Horizon Europe, the European Union’s key funding program for research and innovation. However, advocacy for road safety is already very well served by ETSC. As FERSI, we can effectively support ETSC by providing evidence-based knowledge.
What are you most proud of?
The ultimate objective is to prevent road crashes, and as FERSI partners we try to contribute to this goal by coordinating and promoting relevant research. When you enjoy what you do, success will follow: I believe joy and success are closely intertwined and looking back at my time in FERSI, we definitely had both. Let me pick two highlights.
The first one has to be the FERSI conference in 2022 in The Hague. It was interesting, inspiring, had a good mix of researchers, policy makers, advisors and other disciplines, was very ‘gezellig’ and we enjoyed tasty traditional Dutch cuisine (which is actually Indonesian). My SWOV colleagues Tineke Togni and Maura van Strijp were absolutely fabulous.
Secondly, although it has taken quite some time to get there, I am quite happy with the many short research visits we have had between members. These educational visits by researchers to other research institutes have always focused on specific topics and included specific goals. As you might remember from school, you can learn a lot by looking at the one next to you (but maybe not such a good idea in an exam). Dominique Mignot (FERSI’s Vice President) and Ingrid van Schagen did a great job in arranging this.
What could have gone better?
In my newspaper, I read that the industry has invested 144 billion Euro in automated vehicles (based on a McKinsey report). The bottleneck in introducing automated vehicles on the market is safety: if they can prove it is safe -which is not very well defined- it can be sold. So, we might even conclude that the private sector has invested 144 billion Euro in the road safety issues regarding automated vehicles. FERSI institutes invest in improving road safety of vehicle automation as well, but the vast majority of our work focuses on issues that the public sector is generally held responsible for solving. Issues like drink-driving, drugs, distraction, human limitations, speeding, unsafe road and network design, ineffective policies. After having spent many years in this field, I would be surprised if the budget spent on researching all these different topics added up to more than even as little as 1% of 144 billion Euros. Effective road safety measures in the public domain are either relatively expensive (e.g. safe roads, enforcement) or relatively restrictive for road users (e.g. ISA, bicycle helmets). Both problems present politicians with quite a dilemma. A way out often looked at is innovation and for that you need to invest in research. The costs of crashes typically amount to 2-3% of a countries’ GDP, mainly born by road users. In the private sector, the investor also receives the revenues, for example by selling cars. In the public sector, the government will need to be the investor, whereas the people will be the ones that benefit from the revenues. Sometimes it feels like the government has forgotten that this is their primary purpose. So, to get back to the question about what could have gone better: the point I have tried to make here is not something I feel FERSI could have done better. However, I do feel that, in order to substantially make an increased impact on road safety, it is imperative to shift this dynamic.
Any last words?
First: I wish the new board lots of joy and success, especially the new President Luca Persia. To conclude, I have really enjoyed collaborating with others. We complement each other nicely, and this synergy has added value. I want to thank my fellow board members Astrid Linder (VTI), Mateja Markl (APV), Lila Gaitanidou (HIT/CERTH), Dominique Mignot (UGE) and Klaus Machata (KfV), we really did this together. Many thanks to my ‘home’ team: Sanne van Gils, Sandra Jansen, Nicole de Groot, Maura van Strijp, Lucas Raggers. Last but definitely not least, I thank the marvelous Ingrid.
