Vision Zero: The Road to Zero Traffic Fatalities
Author: Michael Vogel
Rheine has been honored with DEKRA's Vision Zero Award 2024: The city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has seen exceptionally few traffic fatalities in the past decade. With this award, DEKRA regularly honors the road safety work of European cities.
The city of Rheine is located near the Dutch border, in the Münster-Osnabrück-Enschede triangle. It is home to 78,000 people. The river Ems flows through the town from south to north, effectively dividing it in half. The local economy is characterized by medium-sized companies. The largest employers are an international food service provider, the town council, and a car dealership. Rheine has more than 1,200 streets - and news from these streets is encouragingly good: In nine out of ten years, no one died in traffic there.
“We are honored to receive this award,” says Michael Wolters, “even if we were a little surprised by the fact that so very few people died on the roads.” Wolters is the city's mobility manager and in this role in charge of local mobility. He immediately emphasizes that the few traffic fatalities are the achievement of a large number of people. He himself has only been working in his current role since 2018. “It's difficult to say exactly what contributes to the low number of traffic fatalities, but it's certainly the active efforts of the city administration when danger spots or accident blackspots come to light,” says Wolters.
These issues are examined, and possible improvements are worked out in the city of Rheine's traffic working group. The committee consists of experts not only from police and road traffic authorities but also from mobility and traffic planning and Rheine's technical operations. “Our concrete plans are also invariably based on upstream projects and strategic decisions made by the city council. The declared goal is the sustainable development of a city that is worth living in and is bicycle-friendly.” After all, having more alternative options to cars often results in fewer traffic fatalities.
Speed limit of 30 in the city area of Rheine
As of 2022, Rheine has been pursuing the goal of extending the 30 km/h zones in the city to ensure that the speed limit remains at 50 km/h only on main roads. “Reducing speed limits not only helps improve the quality of the surrounding area, but also reduces the number and severity of accidents,” says Thomas Roling, Head of Mobility and Traffic Planning at the city of Rheine. The regular district inspections, which have been taking place for six years, are also highly beneficial for road safety: “Working together with the district councils, which are most familiar with the local problems, we are on site with a team of interdisciplinary experts from the city administration.” This means that even smaller measures can be discussed directly.
Enhancing bike traffic with a comfort cycle path
One of the city's key objectives is to improve the cycling infrastructure. The “comfort cycle path” (Wolters) along the Ems has been in place for some time. “In future, cycle traffic should be able to enter the city center from all sides in a star shape, on cycle lanes - although these will not necessarily be physically separated from car traffic, but will stand out visually,” says Wolters. There will be no blanket red coating on the cycle paths, “but where it is appropriate in terms of road safety, we will do so”. The so-called “Triangle”, a type of high-speed cycle path that has been implemented in recent years, is very effective for road safety - and a great example of how a city cannot always improve it on its own. “Rheine has more commuters coming in than going out,” says Wolters, describing the initial situation. In order to improve the cycle path connections for everyday cycling, a joint project was launched by the Steinfurt district, Rheine and the surrounding municipalities: A significant improvement of a largely existing cycle route, most of which ran along former railroad lines.
Improved surfaces, wider lanes, solar-powered lighting and structurally redesigned right-of-way regulations for cyclists were added to the route. The idea was to increase the incentive to switch to cycling for commuting. A new bridge was even built to shorten the route. “People often only have a few kilometers to work; the triangle has been very well accepted,” says Wolters.
Europe's cities on the way to Vision Zero
In Europe, over 900 cities with a population of more than 50,000 have already achieved the goal of zero traffic fatalities in at least one year since 2009. In the meantime, there are now successful “Vision Zero” cities in 21 of the 22 European countries for which corresponding data exists. The highest figures are recorded in densely populated countries such as Germany, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Spain, France and Italy. The European list also includes 37 major cities, each with a population of well over 200,000. The largest include Bergen, Espoo, Katowice, Mönchengladbach, Newcastle and Vigo.
For Walter Niewöhner, who is responsible at DEKRA for the evaluations that serve as the basis for the Zero Vision Award, it comes as no surprise that award-winning cities cannot say exactly what their recipe for success is: “The boundary conditions are different for every city and are therefore difficult to generalize.” For example, statistics indicate that cities located directly in the suburbs of a major city tend to perform better in terms of road safety than similarly sized cities far from metropolitan areas. This is presumably due to the fact that large cities “attract” the lion's share of car traffic. And where there is less car traffic, there are also fewer deaths or serious injuries.
The DEKRA Vision Zero Map currently covers 29 countries around the world and lists all cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants with no traffic fatalities in at least one calendar year since 2009. Road safety is often defined by accident statistics, in particular by the number of fatalities and injuries. These demonstrate levels of risk and danger, i.e. “road safety”. The
DEKRA Vision Zero Map
, on the other hand, shows where successes have been achieved over the years so that other cities can learn from them and get closer to Vision Zero.
Road safety: All stakeholders keep in touch
There are two things that Niewöhner is now convinced can be generally agreed upon: “Firstly, everyone in a city whose professional work is related to road safety should always communicate and exchange ideas. That way, you get as comprehensive a view as possible as to what causes the issue - and can sometimes find pragmatic solutions to alleviate a problem.” Secondly: “We should focus more on smaller cities. After all, road safety measures that are effective in large cities cannot always be transferred to smaller cities because they come up against infrastructural or financial limits. Think of it the other way round: large cities could also learn from smaller cities.”
There is another aspect speaking in favor of a stronger focus on smaller cities: “A maximum of half of inner-city traffic fatalities occur in places where more than 50,000 people live,” says Niewöhner. Studies conducted by the DEKRA team in German, French, Greek and US cities have revealed this. So, there is still a lot of research to be done before the vision of zero traffic fatalities can become a reality everywhere.