The “Road Safety” Centre of Excellence was presented on December 10 at the Palazzo del Commendatore. The centre is the result of a protocol undersigned by the Head of the Italian Police and Director General for Public Safety, Franco Gabrielli, Rector Eugenio Gaudio, Angelo Tanese, Director the ASL Roma 1 and Bianca Farina, President of the Fondazione Ania.

The task force of partners with various different competences will work on prevention to reduce accidents and raise awareness on road-related risks by integrating their experiences and data to produce a predictive model and profile risk. The aim, naturally, is to decrease the number of road accidents.

After a continuous decrease in the number of victims from 2001 to 2014, over the last five years the number of accidents has swayed, but without dipping below the 3000 victims/year level. Even partial statistics concerning the first 11 months of 2019 provided by the Italian Police and Carabinieri prove similar to the figures for 2018 with 1492 dead (3% less than in 2018 which registered 1538 victims).

The complexity of this phenomenon requires firmer partnerships that will drive the effective cooperation between public and private partners to share technical, engineering, statistical and psychological competences to produce road accident prevention models.

The Research and Training Centre aims to increase the safety level of roads through ad hoc communication activities, a greater understanding of the causes of accidents related to the physical conditions of drivers, and the production of scientific data on the human factor at the basis of the accidents, as the European commission has urged member states to act. Data on road accidents, produced by accurate monitoring activities, will be incorporated into an anonymous database that will provide a helpful aide for planning actions to contrast this phenomenon. Each partner has competences and experience on areas related to road safety and has developed innovative national and international projects related to the various elements involved in this phenomenon.

The Italian State Police, Sapienza University and the Fondazione Ania have already collaborated on Project Icarus, a road safety campaign that has reached over 600,000 students throughout Italy, and the Chironeand Ania Cares initiatives dedicated to psychological assistance for road accident victims and their families. The ASL Roma 1 Local Health Authority implemented an operative protocol with the Rome Attorney General’s Office and the Regione Lazio in application of the road homicide bill.

The centre will also plan prevention activities for citizens and other specific categories, including schools, elderly centres and workplaces, including a far-reaching training programme for health personnel and police forces, who are often called to provide psychological first aid to the direct and indirect victims of accidents.

The aim is to come together, driving a multi-faceted model dedicated to the prevention of road accidents and the promotion of health related to behaviour on the road.