Improving the safety and mobility of vulnerable road users through ITS applications [VRUITS] D2.2 assessment methodology

ITS Applications have in recent years assisted in reducing the number of fatalities in Europe. However, Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) have not benefited as much as vehicle users. The EU-sponsored VRUITS project assesses the safety and mobility impacts of ITS applications for VRUs, assesses the impacts of current and upcoming ITS applications on the safety and mobility of VRUs, identifies how the usability and efficiency of ITS applications can be improved, and recommends which actions have to be taken at a policy level to accelerate deployment of such ITS. This deliverable reports on the needed modification and development of methodologies to assess the impacts of ITS applications for VRUs in the domains of safety, mobility and comfort and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Safety assessment estimates the potential reduction in fatalities and injuries to VRU as a result of ITS applications for VRUs. Mobility and comfort are relatively new impact areas for study. The definition of mobility used in VRUITS is: Mobility is considered any form of outside (out of house) movement based on the identified soft transport modes: walking, cycling or motorcycling. These forms of movement are defined by trips from a starting point to a destination in order to conduct an out of house activity. Thus, the mobility impact assessment investigates the changes in the movement out of house (trips, length of trips, etc.) that are the result of the use of an ITS applications for VRUs. VRUITS uses the definition of comfort from Slater: “(...) a pleasant state of physiological, psychological, and physical harmony between a human being and the environment” (Slater, 1985: p. 4). Thus, the challenge in VRUITS is to assess comfort impacts as a result of the use of ITS applications by VRUs. Finally, the CBA monetises the quantified impacts (safety, mobility and comfort) to calculate the Benefit-Cost ratios. An analysis of the sub-groups of VRUs, presented in this report, forms the basis for determining which criteria the impact assessment methodologies must meet. This analysis also illuminates the data necessary as inputs to the impact assessment methodologies. For each impact assessment area, the state-of-the-art is presented. Each impact assessment area describes the required modifications to the methodology selected for use in the VRUITS project, to meet the demands of the VRU sub-groups as well as the ITS applications selected for analysis in the VRUITS project.