Roads4All: Transforming Traffic Safety Culture Across Europe

Project narrative

Despite decades of investment in safer vehicles, stronger regulations, and upgraded infrastructure, Europe continues to face an urgent challenge: thousands of people are killed or seriously injured on the road each year. Many of the risks that persist – speeding, distraction, low awareness of vulnerable road users, and normalisation of unsafe behaviour – cannot be explained by technical or engineering factors alone. They are deeply rooted in traffic safety culture: the shared norms, habits, beliefs, and expectations that influence how people behave in traffic. 

Yet cultural and behavioural dimensions remain underexplored in traditional road safety strategies. While technology and enforcement play a key role, lasting change requires a systemic, multi-level transformation that reshapes how individuals, organisations, communities, and institutions understand and prioritise safety. 

Roads4All positions itself at the forefront of this shift, proposing a comprehensive framework to better understand traffic safety culture and to design and test interventions capable of driving meaningful and sustained improvements across Europe. 

Roads4All’s mission: 

Roads4All aims to strengthen traffic safety culture by combining behavioural science, mobility engineering, policy innovation, and creative engagement methods. The project develops a holistic, socio-ecological model that connects individual behaviour with organisational practices and institutional frameworks, ensuring that interventions address the full complexity of road safety challenges. 

The project’s work is anchored in five Living Roads – real-world pilot sites in Estonia, Croatia, Greece, Italy and Serbia. In these diverse environments, Roads4All collaborates with citizens, schools, businesses, professional drivers, and public authorities to co-create and test context-sensitive solutions. These include training programmes, technology-supported learning tools (such as VR and driving simulators), and culturally grounded engagement formats such as storytelling, walkshops, and participatory arts. 

By integrating findings across these pilots, Roads4All will deliver a robust Traffic Safety Culture Transformation Framework, a behavioural model, and a digital Decision Support Toolkit, supporting policymakers, cities, and organisations in implementing effective, evidence-based road safety initiatives. Throughout the project, strong engagement structures – including Local Road Boards, an International Advisory Board, and a Community of Practice – ensure relevance, uptake, and long-term impact. 

WR role in Roads4All 

White Research plays a key role in ensuring that Roads4All achieves both scientific and societal impact. As the partner leading Dissemination, Communication, and Stakeholder Engagement, WR is responsible for designing and implementing strategies that connect the project with the communities and decision-makers who can benefit most from its results.