Last week, Ghent hosted cycling enthusiasts at Velo-city 2024, where all things cycling were celebrated, from research to practice to fun, data, and, of course, safety. With a consolidated cycling culture, Ghent was the perfect stage for PHOEBE to connect with the cycling community.
PHOEBE partnered with the ELABORATOR project to showcase their shared objectives and work, aiming to make cycling safer for everyone with a shared booth. POLIS, iRAP, and FACTUAL represented PHOEBE’s ambitions to improve road safety through the interdisciplinary power of traffic simulation and road safety assessment.
It was a fantastic opportunity to share PHOEBE’s progress, including first project results, our methodology and a detailed outline of upcoming project steps, while also gaining insights from numerous other projects and initiatives aimed at enhancing all aspects of cycling.
PHOEBE partners also gained significant insights by attending other Velo-city sessions, which covered topics that are highly relevant to the ongoing development of PHOEBE, including discussions on cycling data, inclusiveness in cycling, the co-existence of mixed modes, and improved safety for cyclists. PHOEBE will continue to explore cooperation with ELABORATOR and other projects and initiatives to promote safer urban streets and a sustainable future for mobility.
The Beta edition is an interim deliverable that explores the current stage of the technological development of the PHOEBE components theoretically presented in Deliverable 1.2. A subsequent deliverable will show the complete documentation for each component and the integration protocols.
Building upon the groundwork laid in Deliverable 2.1 and the design concepts outlined in D4.1, D3.1 combines the documentation of the preparation and development of the PHOEBE framework models, simulation environments, and user support materials primed for testing within the PHOEBE use cases. Specifically, it includes the preparation of several aspects for integration into the AIMSUN traffic simulation environment, including:
Mode shift and induced demand models facilitate dynamic outputs within the PHOEBE framework, reflecting fluctuations in traffic flow and speed.
Human behavioural models to enhance the understanding of user interactions and decision-making processes.
Road safety assessment model enhancements, including refined data segmentation and dynamic risk ratings based on variable speed and flows.
Upgrades to the ‘AIMSUN Next’ simulation environment, aimed at improving simulation accuracy and realism.
Moreover, the deliverable outlines integration procedures and strategies for representing behavioural changes and induced demand in simulation scenarios, highlighting the project’s commitment to addressing complex urban mobility challenges.
Amidst these advancements, two critical lessons have emerged:
Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) Remain Central to Urban Safety:
It is firmly established that VRUs constitute the cornerstone of safety in urban environments. However, the PHOEBE project team has encountered numerous barriers in properly evaluating their safety. These obstacles range from the absence of dedicated data and the need to enhance models for these users to a lack of studies in specific fields. There is still much to be developed in the realm of VRU safety. PHOEBE’s role is to address the gaps in the project’s scope and highlight others for the road safety community.
Data Emerges as a Core Pillar:
Data is the backbone of the PHOEBE project, driving both model development and calibration/validation processes. However, navigating data complexities, including access, compliance, and processing, poses significant challenges. Project partners actively map data sources and develop guidelines to streamline data utilization within the framework, facilitating broader adoption and applicability.
The PHOEBE consortium met in Brussels last week to further discuss upcoming project plans and answer all questions of the European Commission in the framework of a mid-term review meeting in combination with a two-day exchange of all PHOEBE partners. These three fruitful days from 11-13 June helped to advance the pilot planning, integration of models and to discuss last details concerning the PHOEBE framework. The consortium will meet again from 3-5 December in Valencia to visit the streets and cycling paths, which are utilised for the safety assessment. This upcoming meeting will also be dedicated to a full day of exchange with our ‘Community of Practice’, who will have the chance to visit the PHOEBE test sites.
Main takeaways from our consortium meeting
Besides the preparation of the review meeting, as well as discussions about project communication, the two main highlights were technical workshops on the integration of additional safety measures into the PHOEBE framework, the further alignment of data between AIMSUN and iRAP, as well as the definition of an overall implementation strategy for the upcoming months. Additionally, a timeline for the technical exchange and integration was set. All three pilot sites of Athens, Valencia, and the West Midlands gave detailed updates about the planned interventions, data gathering efforts, and the status of cooperation with local stakeholders.
What was the verdict of the first review meeting?
Taking into consideration that the discussions between the European Commission (EC) and our PHOEBE project are confidential, one can conclude that the overall feedback from the EC was positive, since challenges and potential risks and their mitigation strategies were discussed very openly by the consortium. Several organisational aspects of financial reporting and administrative cooperation were the dominating topics of the exchange. Overall, PHOEBE thanks the EC for the fruitful interaction and feedback.
What is currently happening in PHOEBE?
Besides our participation in the VeloCity Conference in Ghent (BE), other communication activities are planned for the summer, including a press release, the publication of our third newsletter, as well as first planning meetings for the Valencia meeting and an engaging programme for our Community of Practice.
The first online meeting of our Community of Practice (CoP) took place last week on 14 May and was a great opportunity to promote the work of PHOEBE to a group of stakeholders that share an interest in road safety. In case you would like to join the group, please submit your interest here.
The first CoP introduced PHOEBE to several stakeholders and highlighted our aims, the framework and the upcoming plans for the second half of the project. Furthermore, first results of the published deliverables, including ‘D1.2 Theoretical principles and methodological approach of the PHOEBE framework and selection of tools’, were shared as well. Additionally, first information concerning a physical meeting in December in Valencia as part of second PHOEBE consortium meeting of 2024 was also discussed.
PHOEBE was an integral part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) sessions and exhibition area at the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2024, which took place last week from 15-18 April in Dublin. The international transport event, which was attended by more than 4000 stakeholders, focused on 4 themes each aligned to PHOEBE. In particular its focus on Safe and Inclusive Transport matched PHOEBE core aim to improve risk understanding. The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), ‘The Floow’ and POLIS Network represented PHOEBE during this four-day long event. conference.
PHOEBE project partners ‘The Floow’ and ‘iRAP’ are UK-based and ‘The Floow’ was selected to showcase leading research programs at the dedicated UKRI area. Dr. Sam Chapman, Senior Vice President Innovation of ‘The Floow’, engaged with a wide global audience during the four days at TRA 2024 showcasing the PHOEBE project on a dedicated stand. This gave project briefings to senior figures, industry, public sector bodies and academia. This also supported educational visits covering the topics of road safety problems and research solutions which supported several hundred senior high school students from Ireland.
Since the PHOEBE project partners ‘The Floow’ and ‘iRAP’ are UK-based, financial support was provided by UKRI and ‘The Floow’ was invited to present our latest research at the dedicated UKRI project stand. Sam Chapman, Senior Vice President Innovation of ‘The Floow’, engaged with a wide audience from the Ireland, the UK and Europe during the four days at TRA 2024, including groups of senior high school students from Ireland.
Poster sessions
Furthermore, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) provided insights with several poster sessions, which invited researchers and stakeholders to discuss first PHOEBE results on road safety. These poster presentations were:
15 April (14:00-15:15) – Hall 8C – Poster Area (Simmonscourt) – Stage 2C – Poster presentation as part of poster session PS 1.2 People-centred & Inclusive Mobility Traffic simulation and safety assessment requirements for enhancing road safety prediction tools
15 April (17:15-18:30) – Hall 2C (Shelbourne Hall) – Presentation as part of session TS 1.3.3 Inclusive Mobility (1) ‘Measuring vulnerable road user volumes after mobility interventions in the metropolitan center of Athens’
16 April (9:45-11:00) – Hall 8C – Poster Area (Simmonscourt) – Poster presentation as part of poster session PS 2.4 Zero Emissions Transport Environmental Impact Modeling of Bike Libraries: A Machine Learning Approach
Poster sessions included a short introductory statement by NTUA on stage, followed by an engaging discussion and detailed explanations in front of the poster. All these sessions allowed PHOEBE to engage with a diverse group of stakeholders.
PHOEBE & UKRI
Due to our dedicated high profile project stand, impactful presentations occurred. Alongside other UK partnered exemplar projects we helped to highlight the potential of UK partners in Horizon projects marking the full return of the UK into the horizon program. This high-profile showcase included visits from various embassies, senior civil servants for many nations, industry figureheads and the MOVE director general from the European Commission amongst many others. Sam Chapman (The Floow) also attended the launch of new bilateral transport funding agreements between the UK and IRELAND launched jointly by ministers of both nations.
Engaging conversations at the UKRI stand
The shared stand also allowed PHOEBE to present materials to explain road safety scenarios, data capture and risk estimation with a large interested audience. This helped to highlight the potential impacts of the PHOEBE framework and its related work on road safety across the UK, wider EU countries and also the world. Sam Chapman (Floow) emphasised already impactful usage of new data being utilised in road assessment in the UK.
This usage following PHOEBE early approaches has helped, in part of the delivery of the UK Road Safety Fund which has provided £158M in funding to support road safety delivery projects estimated to save 2,600 fatal and serious injuries over the next 20 years with an impact value of £1.2B to the UK economy. These large impacts have only been influenced by early PHOEBE work however as work progresses we hope to directly impact more in the years to come from our research.
Our PHOEBE project is evolving constantly, whether its our PHOEBE framework, our three pilots, as well as the plans for the remaining months of the project. Therefore, the website and our communication material needs regular updates.
We are glad to present you the latest version of our flyer, which you can download by clicking the button below or by accessing our PHOEBE library.
In case you would like a physical copy of our small project summary, we invite you to visit us at the UK Research & Innovation stand at the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2024, which will take place from 15-18 April 2024.
At Autonomy Mobility World Expo in Paris, PHOEBE participated in the session Safe Street Spaces: Ramping up Reallocation.The session addressed the challenge of increasing road safety in urban environments with changing mobility needs, which include changing requirements for urban and public spaces. Discussions highlighted the demand for more safe and welcoming public spaces. The panellists discussed the innovative ways we are looking at road safety and how it is intrinsically linked with reallocating street space, accessibility and inclusivity.
After the living lab cities from the EU-funded project ELABORATOR, Helsinki and Trikala talked about their ambitions within the project to improve road safety and reshape their urban spaces for more active modes and new mobilities in future scenarios, Monica Olyslagers from iRAP brought PHOEBE’s perspective into the discussion.
Olyslagers presented PHOEBE’s ambition to develop a framework that can support cities such as Helsinki and Trikala in their goals of increasing road safety. She also talked about how the PHOEBE pilots, with their different approaches, are essential to the project in understanding real challenges and future urban scenarios better.
The relevance of the PHOEBE holistic approach was mentioned as a critical element when thinking about the future of our streets, where vehicle flow and speed are not the only determinants. However, considerations on aspects such as user behaviours and prioritisation of active modes are central in responding to the needs of cities and their future scenarios, where mobility and urban space are people-centred and not car-centred.
The panel was a great opportunity to explore how collaborations with other projects are beneficial in pushing forward the needed developments in the fields of road safety and reallocation of urban space. PHOEBE is happy to seize these opportunities and continue sharing its challenges and expertise.
The cooperation between PHOEBE and its two sister projects V4SAFETY and SOTERIA continued this Tuesday with the second edition of the joint webinar series, which was attended by more than 45 stakeholders online. The 90min-long information session included project updates with a focus on data gathering and -analysis, as well as transport modeling and a brief summary of first project achievements. In case you have missed the webinar or would like to further study the individual presentations, we suggest you to watch and download the related content at the end of this article.
PHOEBE
Besides a general introduction of the three pilots and the project plans, as well as the ‘PHOEBE framework’, presenter Sam Chapman (The Floow) highlighted the data gathering and -analysis processes. Further explanations were made related to the use of data to understand the risks for vulnerable road users, new technologies (such as autonomous driving), as well as different behaviours of road users.
In a similar structure to PHOEBE, SOTERIA started with desk research and the gathering of safety- and accident data. The use cases of the four Living Labs in Oxfordshire (UK), Saxony (DE), Madrid (ES) and Chania (GR) were defined through co-creation workshops with a wide variety of stakeholder consultations, specifically with different groups of vulnerable road users.
Additionally, novel data sources, such as cellular network data and micro-mobility will be used to understand how accidents and near-missed events affect certain population groups and vulnerable road users.
In comparison to PHOEBE and SOTERIA, V4SAFETY takes a vehicle perspective by assessing in-vehicle solutions, such as autonomous emergency braking. Besides this, the potential challenges related to safety regulations and infrastructure solutions are also assessed. This includes, inter alia, the impact of speed limit regulations or the road layout.
The project separates its data requirements into two categories: primary data, such as real-world driving data and infrastructure data, as well as secondary data, which includes models and simulations. Since accident data is an essential cornerstone of the project analysis, V4SAFETY will be able to tap into several EU- and national accident databases.
Panel discussion
The described presentations were followed by a panel discussion between the presenters of each project, who debated the wider question of ’how to use data analysis to enhance urban road safety?’, while discussing answers of several audience polls. The discussion started with the assessment of data sources for transport modeling in urban environments. The audience clearly indicated that the most important data source to enhance road safety is road user behaviour and accident data, two categories that are assessed in all three projects. In a second poll about data use was very diverse, showcasing the various opportunities of data analysis methods.
The PHOEBE consortium celebrated its first anniversary during our latest consortium meeting in Munich on 13 and 14 December 2023. The Technical University of Munich hosted around 20 consortium partners to draw initial conclusions from the first 12 months of the project and plan for 2024. Besides these exchanges, social activities included a stroll across Christmas markets and the historic old town of the Bavarian capital.
The meeting started with a small quiz about project outputs, highlighting the eight deliverables already completed by the project in excellent cooperation among consortium members across 75 partner meetings. This meeting included further discussions about communication goals for 2024, a short report on the first work package that was already concluded, as well as exchanges about PHOEBE KPIs for the three pilots and the integration of the two transport modelling frameworks of iRAP and Aimsun.
A significant part of the two-day meeting discussed model integration and how the updated iRAP model fits into the PHOEBE framework. The latest version includes more granular information related to speed changes of vehicles and bikes, as well as data on the crossing distance of pedestrian level crossings.
Another extensive discussion took place concerning the definition of KPIs for health, safety, environment and economic impacts. These KPIs and the socio-economic analysis will continue to be discussed and refined during the work in 2024, where parameters will be further aligned and refined.
Last but not least, the communication plan for 2024 was another essential part of the exchange. This will include, among other things, homepage updates and a stronger connection with the sister projects and other projects, such as ELABORATOR, dealing with topics of sustainable mobility and road safety. Brainstorming on the outreach potential of PHOEBE concluded the discussions on communication and dissemination, resulting in many ideas and possibilities for the upcoming year.
Overall, project partners drew a positive conclusion for the first year and are looking ahead to the upcoming tasks in 2024 and the consortium meeting in Valencia, which will take place in early June.
PHOEBE has recently published the deliverable D1.2, which is pivotal for the project, as it provides the overall methodological framework in this project and the underlying connections and interactions between its different components. You can access D1.2 ‘Theoretical principles and methodological approach of the PHOEBE framework and selection of tools’ here. We also invite you to read our other publications in our PHOEBE library.
The framework in the document resembles a giant clock consisting of five components:
travel demand models
traffic microsimulation
human behavioural models
road safety assessment
socio-economic impact assessment.
Each of these components ‘receives’ input data from another component, applies models on these data, and ‘gives’ output data to another component. The ‘giving’ and ‘receiving’ process between PHOEBE components resembles all the gears inside that giant clock.
The framework is looped in a longitudinal fashion i.e. it starts at a baseline scenario and iterates after a change has occurred in the transport system. As such, there is an inter-play of data and models between all five components. In addition, within the deliverable, a list of safety indicators is also provided for the safety assessment and to compare different scenarios (baseline vs. future). Finally, The technical development preparation is also described within the deliverable for the implementation of the framework.
The deliverable serves two main purposes:
to be a new research and development framework that advances the state-of-the-art and can be used by other researchers and scholars for dynamically performing the road safety assessments through integrating the existing, emerging, and future changes within the demand models, traffic microsimulation, behavioural models, and road safety assessment models.
to be a “blueprint” for how cities can establish and apply the predictive safety assessment framework efficiently and cost-effectively, providing a practical guide on how it works and how to implement it through the knowledge products such as socioeconomic analysis model, urban road safety assessment, human behaviour and demand modelling.
The PHOEBE framework will be implemented through three pilot cities including Athens (GR), Valencia (ES), and West Midlands (UK) through testing different urban mobility scenarios. Additionally, through research and development part of the project, further refinement and enhancement of the models within the framework is envisioned for broader use.
