Conclusion. It is probably now appropriate to close a chapter in the history of public communication campaigning. Weaknesses which have usually been seen as instrumental can now be seen for what they are: conceptual failures grounded in compromised ontologies and false epistemologies. As I showed in the last chapter, even when viewed within their own narrow empiricist frame, public communication campaigns fail to satisfy a test of empirical efficacy. But empirical failure reveals a deeper moral failure: the failure of government to properly engage in a conversation with the citizens to whom they are ultimately responsible. Whether public communication campaigns are a symptom or a cause of this failure lies beyond the scope of this thesis. But there can be little doubt that the practice of these campaigns has encouraged the persistence of an inappropriate relation between state and citizens. The originators and managers of mass media public communication campaigns conceive of and execute their creations as persuasive devices aimed at the targets who have been selected to receive their messages. But we do not see ourselves as targets (and there are profound ethical reasons why we should not be treated as such), neither do we engage with the mass media as message receivers. On the contrary, as social beings, we become actively and creatively involved with the communicative events which we attend to and participate in; the mass media, like all other communication opportunities, provide the means for generating new meanings, new ways of understanding, new social realities. But people are constrained from participating fully in public discussion about social issues; the government's construal of individuals as targets and of communication as transmitted messages does not provide the discursive space for mutual interaction. Governments should aim to encourage the active engagement of citizens in public discussion by conceiving of and executing public communication as part of a continuing conversation, not as packaged commodities to be marketed and consumed, or as messages to be received. It is time to encourage alternative practices-practices which open up the possibility of productive conversations which will help transform the relationship between citizens and state. However, as I have argued in this thesis, changed practices must be accompanied by profound changes in thinking, otherwise we continue to reinvent the past. Communication practice is informed by the ontology of communication which is itself embedded within other ontologies and epistemologies. The dominant paradigm of communication is at present in a state of crisis, caught between two views of communication power. On the one hand it displays an obsession with instrumental effectiveness on which it cannot deliver. On the other hand-in an attempt to discard the accumulated baggage of dualist philosophy and mechanistic models of effective communication-it indulges in a humourless critique of language which, as Robert Hughes astutely observes, is little more than an enclave of abstract complaint (Hughes 1993:72). This thesis has been an attempt to open up a space for a new ontology, within which we might create new possibilities.

<p>Varje år omkommer cirka 500 personer i trafiken och runt 20 000 personer skadas. Betydande riskfaktorer till trafikolyckor är alkohol och droger som blivit allt vanligare förekommande. Det uppskattas att mellan 12 500 – 15 000 personer kör onyktra på landets vägar dagligen. Rattfylleristerna domineras av yngre och medelålders män och ungefär två tredjedelar av rattfylleristerna har ett alkoholproblem. Samhället arbetar aktivt för att minska rattfylleri och en arbetsmodell som haft positiva resultat är SMADIT (Samverken mot alkohol och droger i trafiken). Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka erfarenheter av att arbeta med modellen SMADIT Västmanland bland polis och personer inom socialtjänsten i Västmanlands län. Till studien användes en kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer och totalt intervjuades sex personer. Intervjuerna analyserades sedan genom en innehållsanalys. Resultatet visade att det fanns en positiv inställning till arbetet och att det kändes meningsfullt. Det fanns dock vissa brister i modellen så som praktiska problem och bristande samverkan. Det efterlyses därför tätare nätverksträffar mellan aktörerna samt bättre återkoppling till polisen. Det finns en positiv inställning till SMADITS fortlevnad i framtiden och förhoppningen är att fler rattfyllerister tackar ja till erbjudandet om samtal med socialtjänsten.</p> / <p>Each year, approximately 500 people are killed in traffic and around 20 000 are injured. Significant risk factors for traffic accidents are alcohol and drug intake that have become increasingly prevalent. The daily estimate of people driving under influence of alcohol is between 12 500 - 15 000. Drunk drivers are dominated by young and middle-aged men and about two-thirds of drunk drivers have alcohol problems. The society is actively working to reduce drunken driving and a model that has had positive results is SMADIT (Cooperation against alcohol and drugs in traffic). The aim of this study was to examine the experience of working with SMADIT Västmanland among police and social workers in Västmanland County. For the study a qualitative approach was used in the form of interviews and totally six individuals were interwied. The interviews were analyzed through a content analysis. The results showed that there was a positive attitude to work with SMADIT and that the model felt meaningful. But there were some shortcomings in the model, like practical problems and difficulties in cooperating. It therefore calls for closer meetings and better feedback to the police. There is a positive attitude towards SMADIT in the future and the hope is that more drunk drivers take the opportunity to talk with the social services.</p>

The main purpose of the thesis is to discuss the accident models which underlie accident prevention in general and road safety in particular, and the consequences of relying on a particular model have for actual preventive work. The discussion centres on two main topics. The first topic is whether the underlying accident model, or paradigm, of traditional road safety should be exchanged for a more complex accident model, and if so, which model(s) are appropriate. From a discussion of current developments in modern road traffic, it is concluded that the traditional accident model of road safety needs replacing. An analysis of three general accident model types shows that the work of traditional road safety is based on a sequential accident model. Since research in industrial safety has shown that such model are unsuitable for complex systems, it needs to be replaced by a systemic model, which better handles the complex interactions and dependencies of modern road traffic. The second topic of the thesis is whether the focus of road safety should shift from accident investigation to accident prediction. Since the goal of accident prevention is to prevent accidents in the future, its focus should theoretically be on how accidents will happen rather than on how they did happen. Despite this, road safety traditionally puts much more emphasis on accident investigation than prediction, compared to areas such as nuclear power plant safety and chemical industry safety. It is shown that this bias towards the past is driven by the underlying sequential accident model. It is also shown that switching to a systemic accident model would create a more balanced perspective including both investigations of the past and predictions of the future, which is seen as necessary to deal with the road safety problems of the future. In the last chapter, more detailed effects of adopting a systemic perspective is discussed for four important areas of road safety, i.e. road system modelling, driver modelling, accident/incident investigations and road safety strategies. These descriptions contain condensed versions of work which has been done in the FICA and the AIDE projects, and which can be found in the attached papers.

The thesis aims at developing approaches to transport policy decisions, based on suggestions and ideas originating from moral philosophy and philosophical decision theory.Paper I analyzes the Swedish transport policy goals, and the problem of combining policygoals with welfare economics. A problem of circularity arises as the Swedish transport policygoals are conflicting, and hence must be subject to trade-offs, while several of the goals themselves entail statements on how to prioritize or restrain goals in case of conflict.Paper II analyzes rationality in road safety policy. Problematic features are identified and discussed. The paper argues that the Swedish road safety goal is rational, since it is actionguiding and achievement-inducing.Paper III includes a model of rational choice under risk with biased risk perception. Under certain plausible conditions, a regulator should raise the population’s risk exposure. By deteriorating the environment the regulator can motivate drivers to choose behaviour that is less biased.Paper IV provides a formal representation of goal systems. The focus is on three properties:consistency, conflict, and coherence. It is argued that consistency is adequately regarded as a property relative to the decision situation or, more specifically, the set of alternatives that the agent faces. Conflict is adequately regarded as a relation over subsets of a given goal systemand should likewise be regarded as relative to the set of alternative that the agent faces.Coherence is given a probabilistic interpretation, based on a support relation over subsets of goal systems.Paper V investigates problems associated with standard deontic logic. A deontic predicate is derived, which avoids some of the major paradoxes in the area. In particular, paradoxes occurring when one obligation is derived by logical necessity from another obligation are dealt with. / QC 20100806

Varje år omkommer cirka 500 personer i trafiken och runt 20 000 personer skadas. Betydande riskfaktorer till trafikolyckor är alkohol och droger som blivit allt vanligare förekommande. Det uppskattas att mellan 12 500 – 15 000 personer kör onyktra på landets vägar dagligen. Rattfylleristerna domineras av yngre och medelålders män och ungefär två tredjedelar av rattfylleristerna har ett alkoholproblem. Samhället arbetar aktivt för att minska rattfylleri och en arbetsmodell som haft positiva resultat är SMADIT (Samverken mot alkohol och droger i trafiken). Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka erfarenheter av att arbeta med modellen SMADIT Västmanland bland polis och personer inom socialtjänsten i Västmanlands län. Till studien användes en kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer och totalt intervjuades sex personer. Intervjuerna analyserades sedan genom en innehållsanalys. Resultatet visade att det fanns en positiv inställning till arbetet och att det kändes meningsfullt. Det fanns dock vissa brister i modellen så som praktiska problem och bristande samverkan. Det efterlyses därför tätare nätverksträffar mellan aktörerna samt bättre återkoppling till polisen. Det finns en positiv inställning till SMADITS fortlevnad i framtiden och förhoppningen är att fler rattfyllerister tackar ja till erbjudandet om samtal med socialtjänsten. / Each year, approximately 500 people are killed in traffic and around 20 000 are injured. Significant risk factors for traffic accidents are alcohol and drug intake that have become increasingly prevalent. The daily estimate of people driving under influence of alcohol is between 12 500 - 15 000. Drunk drivers are dominated by young and middle-aged men and about two-thirds of drunk drivers have alcohol problems. The society is actively working to reduce drunken driving and a model that has had positive results is SMADIT (Cooperation against alcohol and drugs in traffic). The aim of this study was to examine the experience of working with SMADIT Västmanland among police and social workers in Västmanland County. For the study a qualitative approach was used in the form of interviews and totally six individuals were interwied. The interviews were analyzed through a content analysis. The results showed that there was a positive attitude to work with SMADIT and that the model felt meaningful. But there were some shortcomings in the model, like practical problems and difficulties in cooperating. It therefore calls for closer meetings and better feedback to the police. There is a positive attitude towards SMADIT in the future and the hope is that more drunk drivers take the opportunity to talk with the social services.

Transportation safety has been recognized as a public health issue worldwide, consequently, transportation researchers and practitioners have been attempting to provide adequate safety performance for the various transportation components and facilities to all road users given the usually scarce resources available. Safety engineers have been trying to make decisions affecting safety based on the knowledge extracted from different types of statistical models and/or observational before-after analysis. It is generally recognized that this type of factual knowledge is not easily obtained either statistically or empirically. Despite the intuitive link between road safety and observed crashes, a good understanding of the sequence of events prior to the crash can provide a more rational basis for the development of engineering countermeasures. The development of more comprehensive mechanistic models for safety assessment is heavily dependent on detailed vehicle tracking data that is not readily available. The potential of microscopic simulation in traffic safety and traffic conflict analysis has gained increasing interest mostly due to recent developments in human behaviour modelling and real-time vehicle data acquisition. In this thesis, we present a systematic investigation of the use of existing behavioural microscopic simulation models in short-term road safety studies. Initially, a microscopic framework is introduced to identify potentially unsafe vehicle interactions for different vehicle movements based on three types of traffic behaviour protocols: car-following, lane change and gap acceptance. This microscopic model for safety assessment applies a safety performance measure based on pairwise comparisons of spacing and speed differential between adjacent vehicles and individual braking power in real-time. A calibration/validation procedure using factorial analysis is presented to select best model input parameters for this safety performance measure by using high resolution vehicle tracking data. The ability of the proposed safety performance measure to reflect real-life observed high-risk vehicular interactions is explored in three intuitive tests using observed crash data. Finally, the usefulness of the model is illustrated through its application to investigate the safety implications of two different geometric and operational traffic strategies. The overall results indicate that, notwithstanding the fact that actual behavioural microscopic algorithms have not been developed strictly to model crashes, they are able to replicate several factors directly related to high risk situations that could lead to crashes with reasonable accuracy. With the existing upward trend in computing power, modelling techniques and increasing availability of detailed vehicle tracking data, it is likely that safety studies will be carried out using a more mechanistic and inclusive approach based on disruptive driving behaviour rather than ultimate unpredictable and heavily restrictive crash events.

Transportation safety has been recognized as a public health issue worldwide, consequently, transportation researchers and practitioners have been attempting to provide adequate safety performance for the various transportation components and facilities to all road users given the usually scarce resources available. Safety engineers have been trying to make decisions affecting safety based on the knowledge extracted from different types of statistical models and/or observational before-after analysis. It is generally recognized that this type of factual knowledge is not easily obtained either statistically or empirically. Despite the intuitive link between road safety and observed crashes, a good understanding of the sequence of events prior to the crash can provide a more rational basis for the development of engineering countermeasures. The development of more comprehensive mechanistic models for safety assessment is heavily dependent on detailed vehicle tracking data that is not readily available. The potential of microscopic simulation in traffic safety and traffic conflict analysis has gained increasing interest mostly due to recent developments in human behaviour modelling and real-time vehicle data acquisition. In this thesis, we present a systematic investigation of the use of existing behavioural microscopic simulation models in short-term road safety studies. Initially, a microscopic framework is introduced to identify potentially unsafe vehicle interactions for different vehicle movements based on three types of traffic behaviour protocols: car-following, lane change and gap acceptance. This microscopic model for safety assessment applies a safety performance measure based on pairwise comparisons of spacing and speed differential between adjacent vehicles and individual braking power in real-time. A calibration/validation procedure using factorial analysis is presented to select best model input parameters for this safety performance measure by using high resolution vehicle tracking data. The ability of the proposed safety performance measure to reflect real-life observed high-risk vehicular interactions is explored in three intuitive tests using observed crash data. Finally, the usefulness of the model is illustrated through its application to investigate the safety implications of two different geometric and operational traffic strategies. The overall results indicate that, notwithstanding the fact that actual behavioural microscopic algorithms have not been developed strictly to model crashes, they are able to replicate several factors directly related to high risk situations that could lead to crashes with reasonable accuracy. With the existing upward trend in computing power, modelling techniques and increasing availability of detailed vehicle tracking data, it is likely that safety studies will be carried out using a more mechanistic and inclusive approach based on disruptive driving behaviour rather than ultimate unpredictable and heavily restrictive crash events.

<p>Child pedestrian safety is one of the biggest safety issues regarding planning of a well arranged urban traffic. The fact that vulnerable road users suffer most from traffic incidents also raises concern for children. Children need special care while considering traffic safety. The factors are various that they differ from adults by many aspects. For their physically smaller size, immature ability to judge the traffic situations, lack of experience about traffic and mental deficiencies like losing concentration after short periods, they are much more susceptible to the traffic hazards than adults. Various studies have been carried and many applications regarding child and school pedestrian safety worldwide and the most hazardous periods were found as afternoon hours. Age factor generally is flexible but as the child grows older, mobility increases and risks become larger. The risk factors also include the social and economical environment that children living in good life standards suffer less than those are not. Education is also crucial on adopting the sense of road safety on children’s perspective. Simulation based studies have proved to be effective in order to draw child’s attention to the subject, however it should be combined with field trips to gain a more realistic and solid idea about the matter. Besides, engineering measures rise up as another milestone where roadside and land use planning is important. Traffic calming measures have proved to be effective to warn road users and thus form a safer traffic environment for children. Special applications for school zones such as flashing lights, narrowed crossways or 30km/h areas have been effective. The case study concerns the evaluation of child pedestrian safety in the vicinities of various accidents previously happened in Norrköping. Two methods were used to examine the degree of safety for the places of incidents. For locations near an intersection, road safety audit and traffic conflicts technique were applied, while, for the incident points along streets, only road safety audit technique was used. It is stated that, because of the multivariable aspect of the problem, collective application of various safety evaluation solutions would give better idea on the risk of the location and possible improvements for the future.</p>

Historically, the traditional planning process has not given much attention to the road safety evaluation of development plans. To make an informed, defensible, and proactive choice between alternative plans and their safety implications, it is necessary to have a procedure for estimating and evaluating safety performance. A procedure is required for examining the influence of the urban network development on road safety, and in particular, determining the effects of the many variables that affect safety in urban planning. Safety planning models can provide a decision-support tool that facilitates the assessment of the safety implications of alternative network plans. The first objective of this research study is to develop safety planning models that are consistent with the regional models commonly used for urban transportation planning. Geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR), full-Bayesian semiparametric additive (FBSA), and traditional generalized linear modelling (GLM) techniques are used to develop the models. The study evaluates how well each model is able to handle spatial variations in the relationship between collision explanatory variables and the number of collisions in a zone. The evaluation uses measures of goodness of fit (GOF) and finds that the GWPR and FBSA models perform much better than the conventional GLM approach. There is little difference between the GOF values for the FBSA and GWPR models. The second objective of this research study is to examine the temporal transferability of the safety planning models and alternative updating methods. The updating procedures examine the Bayesian approach and application of calibration factors. The results show that the models are not temporally transferable in a strict statistical sense. However, relative measures of transferability indicate that the transferred models yield useful information in the application context. The results also show that the updated safety planning models using the Bayesian approach predict the number of collisions better than the calibration factor procedure.

Historically, the traditional planning process has not given much attention to the road safety evaluation of development plans. To make an informed, defensible, and proactive choice between alternative plans and their safety implications, it is necessary to have a procedure for estimating and evaluating safety performance. A procedure is required for examining the influence of the urban network development on road safety, and in particular, determining the effects of the many variables that affect safety in urban planning. Safety planning models can provide a decision-support tool that facilitates the assessment of the safety implications of alternative network plans. The first objective of this research study is to develop safety planning models that are consistent with the regional models commonly used for urban transportation planning. Geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR), full-Bayesian semiparametric additive (FBSA), and traditional generalized linear modelling (GLM) techniques are used to develop the models. The study evaluates how well each model is able to handle spatial variations in the relationship between collision explanatory variables and the number of collisions in a zone. The evaluation uses measures of goodness of fit (GOF) and finds that the GWPR and FBSA models perform much better than the conventional GLM approach. There is little difference between the GOF values for the FBSA and GWPR models. The second objective of this research study is to examine the temporal transferability of the safety planning models and alternative updating methods. The updating procedures examine the Bayesian approach and application of calibration factors. The results show that the models are not temporally transferable in a strict statistical sense. However, relative measures of transferability indicate that the transferred models yield useful information in the application context. The results also show that the updated safety planning models using the Bayesian approach predict the number of collisions better than the calibration factor procedure.