The PHOEBE-JULIA webinar, which took place yesterday from 11-12 AM CET, highlighted tools, simulations and frameworks for city administrations and urban planners to enhance the safety of vulnerable road users with a specific focus on cycle lanes.
The project partners POLIS Network, FACTUAL, and iRAP hosted the 60-minute webinar that was attended by 30 participants and showcased the two Spanish pilots in Barcelona (JULIA) and Valencia (PHOEBE).
These pilots were selected since both focus on cycling infrastructure and are evaluated by FACTUAL and iRAP. Similar to PHOEBE, JULIA is also covering several additional aspects beyond cycling. Both projects invite you to read the summary and watch the recording below.
Importance of road safety for cyclists and VRUs
The overall aim of both EU-funded projects is to enhance road safety for cyclists and other vulnerable road users and therefore to encourage active mobility to achieve the goal of the European Parliament to ‘double cycling by 2030’, as well as to reach the targets outlined in the European Declaration on Cycling.
Monica Olyslagers (iRAP), introduced the current challenges related to road safety by highlighting that both projects aim to assess road user behaviour in a progressive instead of a reactive approach. ‘This means that we don’t wait until an accident happens, instead, we try to use our models and other technology to predict safety levels or street design that is potentially dangerous for vulnerable road users’ explained Olyschlagers.
The JULIA project
Manuel Filgueiras (FACTUAL) gave a general introduction to the project, which aims to utilise data from the European satellite & space technology solutions of COPERNICUS and GALILEO for urban mobility innovation. This includes seamless public transport trip validation of users through positioning data or AI- and computer vision-enhanced cycle lane assessment to improve the safety of cyclists and other VRUs. These and other technology applications are tested within the framework of three pilots in Slovenia, Greece and Barcelona, of which the latter was presented during the webinar.
Lane Patrol use cases of Barcelona (JULIA) and Valencia (PHOEBE)
José Gutiérrez (KEITA Mobility Factory) showcased the design, data collection and analysis of the two Spanish pilots. To analyse the risk of cycling lanes in the Catalonian capital, appropriate locations needed to be selected, followed by the characterisation of the cycling infrastructure and a quality insurance procedure of the available data.
The data collection is done by volunteers through an app which was developed by the project that allows the gathering of geo-referenced images. Beyond these images, up to 40 different attributes of the infrastructure are collected to meet the criteria of the CycleRAP standard. These attributes include passing vehicles, road infrastructure, parking spaces, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and other parameters. All gathered data is combined into a baseline scenario that is used to provide an initial rating of the assessed stretch of cycling lane.
Once the baseline scenario with all required parameters has been recorded, further simulations of potential improvements are tested. This allows urban planners to virtually test changes in speed limits or infrastructure to select the appropriate measure for a specific stretch of road or intersection.
We also invite you to attend our upcoming EU Road Safety Cluster Joint Webinar on 25 February (2-3 PM CET), which will introduce you to innovations for road safety in complex urban environments.