Transport and Covid-19: responses and resources

Access and Safety in European Cities

Access and Safety in European Cities project image

This project aims to provide a better understanding of the role of transport policy and infrastructure investment in improving access, safety and ultimately well-being in urban areas. It will develop new and improved indicators for urban accessibility and traffic safety, and identify ways to mainstream these into planning and appraisal frameworks.

On accessibility, the project will develop a global tool for urban accessibility metrics that can be used to compare access to employment, goods, services and other opportunities across cities. It will look beyond traditional measures for access such as travel time savings, congestion relief or infrastructure availability. Instead, it will use standardised, easily available data to create a set of indicators that measure access by public transport, car, bicycle and walking to public services (schools, hospitals), amenities (green space, waterfront), consumption (supermarkets, restaurants, shops) and recreational opportunities (e.g. theatres, tourist attractions). Indicators will be available for a large range of European cities as well as some non-European cities.

On safety, the project will develop indicators specifically for urban road safety to enable direct comparisons across European cities and urban regions. Differences in safety performance will be examined in the light of differing mobility patterns and road user behaviour. A number of case studies will describe how specific cities have succeeded in putting road safety high up on the political agenda and in delivering tangible results. The road safety dimension of the project is building on the International Transport Forum’s Safer City Streets network. 

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This project is part of a collaboration between the International Transport Forum and the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) at the OECD. It is funded through a grant from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy.