Activity

The OPTIMISM project main outcomes can be described as follows: a) Comprehensive analysis of National Travel Statistics in Europe and recommendations on harmonization of travel behaviour analysis; b) List of potential megatrends influencing transportation system and mobility behavior; c) Scenario simulation for mobility behaviour concerning future trends at macro level; d) Agent based model at micro level representing demand and technology at local scale;  e) Decarbonisation potential and co-benefits of the best practices f) Framework for assessment of co-modality/ICT options; g) Definition of strategies for integrating and optimising passenger transport systems h) Report on impact of best practices on mobility patterns i) Recommendations on the principles of sustainable mobility.

The SOLUTIONS project aims to support the exchange on innovative and green urban mobility solutions between cities from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean. The project’s overall objective is to make a substantial contribution to the uptake of innovative and green urban mobility solutions across the world by facilitating dialogue and exchange, promoting successful policy, providing guidance and tailored advice to city officials, and fostering future cooperation on research, development and innovation. The activities are organised around six thematic clusters: 1) public transport 2) transport infrastructures 3) city logistics 4) integrated planning / sustainable urban mobility plans 5) network and mobility management; 6) clean vehicles.

The project aimed to contribute to reducing the number of road casualties in Europe by further developing and testing the naturalistic observation methodology.
The naturalistic observation method enables the observation of road users in an inconspicuous way by equipping the passenger cars with devices that continuously monitor various aspects of driving behavior including information about vehicle movements, the driver and the direct environment.

The project aimed at developing suitable road safety engineering evaluation tools. These evaluation tools will allow the easy identification of both unsafe and potentially unsafe locations in a road network. 

This Action aims to contribute to the body of research by bringing together new approaches to incorporate equity consideration in transport project evaluation and decision making. The approaches consist of the measurement of accessibility with the literature on social justice, travel behaviour models and socio-economic impacts analysis in line with mainstream welfare economics. The three main objectives can be described as follows: 1) to establish a methodology to explore the links between transport accessibility and distributional factors; 2) to develop new transport evaluation criteria accounting for accessibility in the social welfare function; 3) to help embed equity assessment into future transport policies and investments.

The main objective of the action was to develop, implement and promote the use of methods and procedures for supporting the use of traffic simulation models, especially on the topics of model calibration and validation.

The research project analysed future trends (until 2030) of the costs associated to passenger and freight transport, making use of the strategic transport investments planned within Europe and Portugal. It included two main case studies: i) cost-benefit analysis of alternative transport technologies (case study within Lisbon Metropolitan Area). Several scenarios had been considered using prospective methods and several alternative options were considered such as plug-in electric vehicles, intermodal schemes and new shared mobility services (electric car sharing, bike sharing and electric scooter), ii) evaluation of  intermodal transport scenarios (Port of Sines) comprising maritime, rail, road, air and short-sea-shipping continuous logistic chains. Cost-effectiveness analysis was used to find the transport investment alternative that could lead to the highest reduction in CO2 emissions (Life-Cycle analysis perspective).

This work consisted in application of the methodology developed in the SafetyNet project to the Portuguese road network, to determine the Road network safety performance indicator for 2011

This study aims to estimate a series of road traffic annual volumes for Portuguese motorized vehicles for the period 2004-2012, using the method developed for the purpose in LNEC, based on information from mandatory periodic inspections in the period between 2002-01-01 and 2013-12-31.

This study intended to identify the high accident risk sites on the Portuguese national road network for the years 2005-2010, using the method developed at LNEC, using the empirical Bayes estimation of the expected accident frequency, combining accident frequency models and five-year of observed accident frequencies. Detection criteria are based on percentage thresholds of the obtained expected accident frequency distributions, by type of road.

This work concerns the update of geographical database of road accidents between 2008 and 2011 and its exploratory analysis. It also includes the methodology adopted in the identification of high accident risk sites and the results of its application in the selection of four pilot areas for corrective intervention in Lisbon.

These studies consist in the verification of the information contained in the annual safety reports that Portuguese motorway concessionaires are contractually obliged to submit to the highway regulatory authority. The work is intended to verify that the report’s contents are in accordance with contractual requisites and the data provided by relevant official sources. The audits also include the statistical analysis of the information provided and the verification of the contracted safety performance criteria presented in the report.

This study is intended to support the national authority from standardization on road infrastructure in the review process and reformulation of road design guidelines, consisting of two tasks:

• Support the review of the current road design guidelines

• Elaborate a "Base Document" for reference to the overall reformulation of all standardization documents for the design and safety of the national road infrastructure.

This study for the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe was part of the contracted work within the HEPA Europe/Healthy Cities sub-network project group. The project developed a comprehensive mobility survey and a former application of the Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) for walking and cycling in Portugal through a case study in the City of Viana do Castelo. As part of a cost-benefit analysis framework, the study estimated the health benefits of regular walking and cycling associated to several city investment projects: street reconstruction projects for pedestrians in the city centre and the build-up of a cycling network.

This study aimed at the assessment of the applicability of the checklists included in the Manual published by LNEC in 2001 to the Portuguese context and at the identification of possible improvements to the Manual content.

The Road Safety Audit of road design schemes (RSA) is an aprioristic instrument in road safety intervention management foreseen by the Directive 2008/96/EC of the Parliament and the European Council. According to the Manual’s definition, the RSA "comprises a set of procedures designed to incorporate in an explicit and formal way knowledge and information on road safety in road planning and design, with the aim of mitigating the risk of accidents and reducing their consequences”

In this study road safety audits were carried out to the detailed design of the EN 120 bypass at Aljezur and to the preliminary of the IC3 stretch between Almeirim and Chamusca. The Manual control lists are fully applicable to the design of National Road Network shemes.

This study aimed at creating the conditions for the assessment of roadside features influencing road safety on the National Road Network, to be applied at the design and operation stages, in order to support the implementation of road safety interventions in this area.

The following activities were carried out:

• Produce a Technical Manual  to support roadside detailed design, with the basic tools to identify roadside risk factors and to support defining mitigation measures.
• Produce Guidelines on the application of road restraint systems (which are roadside obstacles designed to protect traffic from other more dangerous obstacles), including the identification of the scope of each type of system and the situations in which they should not be used.
• Training events on the application of the Technical Manual and the Guidelines.
  
  

This study was intended to create the technical conditions for the implementation of Road Safety Inspections (RSI) on National Road Network sections, as foreseen by the Directive 2008/96/EC of the Parliament and European Council.

According to the Manual definition, RSI is an a aprioristic road safety intervention instrument, which consists of a regular and systematic in situ inspection of operating roads, covering the entire National Road Network, carried out by roads safety expert teams with specific training, resulting in a formal report which identifies the hazards and safety problems detected, to which the competent road authority (usually the concessionaire) has to respond formally.

The work involved the following activities:

• Prepare the Technical Manual to support the implementation of road safety inspections.
• Test the application of the manual on the two most relevant road types in the National Road Network (motorways and single carriageway roads).
  
• Define the qualification requirements of the safety expert teams responsible for conducting RSI.
  

This action was aimed at creating the conditions for planning new roads and major interventions in road safety - regional or national – which can include quantitative and specific evaluation of their expected effects on road safety. The work involved the following activities:

• Develop recommendations for the evaluation of the impact on safety of interventions (EISI) in the National Road Network infrastructure, in both these aspects mentioned above.
• Create a GIS-based tool to support the EISI on the National Road Network.
• Carry out a pilot test with the execution of a EISI to a selected set of interventions on the scope of the National Road Safety Strategy and coordinated by InIR.