Don't wait for accidents to happen

Researcher’s course 2025, Berlin

21–22 October 2025

Berlin, Germany

Local hosts: Peter Wagner, Marek Junghans, Ragna Hoffmann

The course is organized in connection to the 37th ICTCT conference.

About

When?

21–22 October 2025

Registration deadline: 1 October 2025

The number of seats is limited to 20, ‘first come first served’ applies.

Where?

Berlin, Germany

Course fee

The course fee is €tbd.

The fee includes tea/coffee-breaks and simple lunches. The participants will receive access to the presentation materials after the course.

The fee DOES NOT include registration to the ICTCT conference.

Course language

The course is given in English.

Social media

Please, use the hashtags #ictct and #ictct2025berlin in your posts related to the course.

Registration

The registrations will be opened soon.

The course registrations is closed.

Participants who registered but not paid yet can still use the information below to complete their payments.

Please, note that the registration includes two steps: (i) registration form that will deliver information about you to the course coordinator, and (ii) payment done through the PayPal service.

Your registration is secured once both steps are completed.

These steps are separated technically, and you will receive two different emails confirming successful completion of each step. The PayPal email is your official receipt for the money transaction.

In case you have not received some of the emails: (i) please first check your ‘Junk’ folder, and, if still not found, (ii) reach to us at education@ictct.net for a ‘manual check’.

Registration form

Payment

The payment can be done using a PayPal account or a credit card (Visa, MasterCard, etc.). The transactions are handled entirely by the PayPal service, and ICTCT will not have access to any sensitive information of yours.

Syllabus

Motivation

The road accident phenomenon is complex and so are road safety management systems. As a consequence, road safety research is multi-disciplinary and covers such areas as epidemiology, statistics, in-depth accident analyses, biomechanics, behavioural studies, sociology, economics, etc. Researchers new in the field of road safety are usually limited to a specific field of investigation in which they work in-depth without getting the broader picture of what is being done in road safety research and how the different investigation fields complement each other.

The mission with the course is to give the participant a coherent view into traditional and modern traffic safety theory, methods and solutions and to have a clear understanding of the importance of the institutional framework in order to be able to make a difference in the traffic safety work subsequently. It is hoped that at the end of the course, participants will be able to situate their own work within a broader framework, and will find it easier to communicate with researchers from other disciplines.

Course objectives

  • Provide researchers with an overview of theories and concepts in road safety and the associated research approaches and methods, in line with ICTCT goals and fundamentals
  • Discuss key issues in road safety research
  • Provide in-depth knowledge of research approaches and findings on some selected topics and their implications for other fields of road safety
  • Provide an opportunity for exchange of experience between researchers from different disciplines and different parts of the world

Target audience

The course is designed for road safety researchers from all disciplines, in all sectors (transportation, public health, urban planning, education, law, etc.) and from all countries.

Study credits

Formally, ICTCT is not an academic institution to issue study credits (even though most of the course teachers are indeed university lecturers). However, PhD students are encouraged to inquire at their home universities whether they may get credits for the course participation (corresponding 1.5 ECTS credits). For any questions related to the course contents, the supervisors are welcome to contact the course organizers.

Teachers

The course faculty consists of senior researchers and university professors with an extensive experience in road safety.

Attila Borsos
University of Gyor
Hungary

Attila Borsos received his master’s degree in Economics from the University of Gyor, Hungary, and in Civil Engineering from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He gained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Gyor, where he is full professor in the Department of Transport Infrastructure and Water Resources Engineering since 2012. He was a Visiting Scholar at Florida Atlantic University in 2013 and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Connecticut in 2010. He is a member of the PIARC World Road Association Technical Committee 3.1 Road Safety. His main research interest is road safety, more specifically accident prediction models, traffic safety trends, surrogate measures of safety, and the effect of Autonomous Vehicles on safe road design.

Stijn Daniels
Transport & Mobility Leuven
KU Leuven
Belgium

Stijn Daniels, the president of ICTCT, is a researcher and consultant in transport planning, road safety and mobility at Transport & Mobility Leuven (TML), Belgium. He is also a part-time professor in Traffic and Transport Safety at KU Leuven, faculty of Engineering.

His primary research interest is road safety: causes and mechanisms associated with road crashes and near-crash events, effects of road design on crash occurrence, safety issues for vulnerable road users, effectiveness analysis, cost-benefit analysis and economic valuation.

Rune Elvik
Institute of Transport Economics
Norway

Rune Elvik has been a road safety researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics since 1980. His main areas of research have been evaluation studies, meta-analysis and cost-benefit analysis.

Rune Elvik served as editor-in-chief (together with Karl Kim) of Accident Analysis and Prevention from 2005 to 2013. He has participated in many European projects and contributed to the Highway Safety Manual. He has published more than 150 papers in scientific journals.

Haneen Farah
Delft University of Technology
the Netherlands

Haneen Farah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Transport and Planning and a co-director of the Traffic and Transportation Safety Lab at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Her research interests lie in the fields of road infrastructure design, road user behaviour, and traffic safety. She is currently investigating the implications of the advances in vehicle technology and automation on these fields. In her research she combines her expertise in transportation engineering, with her curiosity in the fields of human factors and econometrics.

Before joining TU Delft Haneen Farah was a postdoctoral researcher at KTH, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. She received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology.

Marjan Hagenzieker
Delft University of Technology
the Netherlands

Marjan Hagenzieker is full professor Traffic Safety in the Department of Transport and Planning and co-director of the Traffic and Transportation Lab at Delft University of Technology since 2014. Her research and education focus on the road safety impact of the transport system, with a particular interest in road user behaviour. She graduated in experimental psychology and received her PhD on the effects of rewards on road user behaviour, both at Leiden University. Marjan’s research interests are road user interactions with road infrastructure, in-vehicle technology and automated vehicles; distraction in traffic, and the safety of vulnerable road users (e.g. older road users, cyclists).

Anja Katharina Huemer
Universität der Bundeswehr München
Germany

Anja Katharina Huemer is a professor for traffic psychology at Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany. She received her PhD on the measurement of driver distraction in 2012 from Technische Universität Braunschweig. Her main research interests are the safety and comfort of vulnerable road users and promoting sustainable mobility by system design.

Carl Johnsson
Lund University
Sweden

Carl Johnsson has his PhD from Lund University, Sweden. His research focuses mainly traffic conflicts (near-accidents) and how they can be used to understand failures in traffic, trajectory data collection using video analysis and driving simulators, as well as understanding and causal interpretation of safety critical behaviors.

Aliaksei Laureshyn
Lund University
Sweden

Aliaksei Laureshyn is an associate professor in traffic safety at Lund University, Sweden. His core competence is within theory and practical application of proactive (non-accident based) methods in safety analysis. Other research interests cover emerging technologies for data collection in traffic, safety of vulnerable road users, and policy and practice within traffic safety management, both in mature contexts, and in low- and middle-income countries.

Aliaksei is a passionate educator about the Safe System approach to traffic safety, giving lectures and full-scale courses on this subject at different arenas and in different countries incl. Sweden, China, India, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, the United States, etc.

Since 2021, Aliaksei acts as the editor-in-chief of the Traffic Safety Research journal (2004-3082). In this role, he promotes the values of the research being relevant, and scientific communication effective and understandable.

Ralf Risser
Palacky University in Olomouc
Czech Republic

Ralf Risser is an Austrian traffic psychologist. His main areas of professional interest are psychological aspects of mobility, sustainability and active traffic modes. At this time Visiting professor at Palacky University in Olomouc, Department of Psychology, Ralf Risser is a member of International Cooperation on Theories and Concepts in Traffic Safety (former ICTCT President, now Honorary member) and TPI (Traffic Psychology International).

Matus Sucha
Palacky University in Olomouc
Czech Republic

Matúš Šucha is a Czech traffic psychologist. His main areas of professional interest are psychological aspects of mobility, sustainability and active traffic modes. Associate Professor Šucha is an active member of numerous prestigious international organisations, including ICTCT (International Cooperation on Theories and Concepts in Traffic Safety), TPI (Traffic Psychology International) and DGVP (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Verkehrspsychologie).

Johan Vos
Delft University of Technology
the Netherlands

Johan Vos is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Transport and Planning at the Delft University of Technology, working in the Traffic and Transportation Safety Lab. His research focuses on applied studies in geometric road design, with an emphasis on human factors. In addition to his academic role, Johan works for Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch Department of Transportation, where he edits the national geometric design guidelines for motorways and leads the road design knowledge field. His PhD dissertation explored the cues drivers use to begin slowing down when approaching a motorway curve, and this work is now being integrated into the design guidelines.

Programme

15 October 2024

Road safety problems and collection of data

9:00–9:30

‘Introduction: course & faculty & participants’

9:30–10:15

‘Shaping traffic safety policies: a role game’

Anja Katharina Huemer

The purpose of the role game is to provide practical insights into the complexity of the decision-making process within traffic safety domain. The game serves also as an icebreaker to facilitate more informal communication among the course participants and with the teachers.

10:15–10:30

Coffe-break

10:30–11:30

‘Safe System in traffic safety’

Stijn Daniels

In this session we will introduce the principles of a Safe System approach to road safety. Such an approach looks at safety as an integral part of the wider road traffic system. We will discuss in the group to what extent this approach differs from other approaches and what consequences this could have on current road safety policies.

11:30–12:30

Lunch

12:30–13:30

‘How to measure road traffic safety?’

Aliaksei Laureshyn

This lecture will be about what exposure data to be used for risk assessment; road fatality trends historically; the correlation between human live values and fatality rates; 3-dimensional analysis of accidents; problems with using accidents; non-accident based road safety indicators to analyse the traffic safety situation.

13:30–14:30

‘Surrogate measures of safety and behavioral observation studies’

Aliaksei Laureshyn

Quite often, researchers cannot rely on historical accident counts due to their scarcity, poor quality (due to under-reporting or errors in coding) or simply due to  absence of any history (in case of newly built sites). In such situations, alternative methods for measuring safety performance are called for. In this lecture we will discuss how traffic conflict and behavioural observations can be used as a complement—or a supplement—for accident data. A significant part of the lecture will be devoted to watching and discussing the actual traffic videos, what safety relevant information could be extracted from them and how it should be interpreted and generalized.

14:30–15:00

Coffee-break

Quite often, researchers cannot rely on historical accident counts due to their scarcity, poor quality (due to under-reporting or errors in coding) or simply due to  absence of any history (in case of newly built sites). In such situations, alternative methods for measuring safety performance are called for. In this lecture we will discuss how traffic conflict and behavioural observations can be used as a complement—or a supplement—for accident data. A significant part of the lecture will be devoted to watching and discussing the actual traffic videos, what safety relevant information could be extracted from them and how it should be interpreted and generalized.

15:00–16:00

‘How will automated vehicles affect road users’ behaviour and traffic safety?’

Haneen Farah
Marjan Hagenzieker

In this lecture we will dive into future scenarios where automated vehicles might interact with different road users (e.g., human drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists) and discuss together potential implications. Will human road users interact differently than when interacting with human driven vehicles? Do current automated vehicles (e.g., Waymo vehicles) behave in traffic similarly to how humans behave? And what are the needs of vulnerable road users when interacting with automated vehicles? Join us in this lecture to find out answers to these questions.

16:00

End of the day recap

16 October 2024

Road user behavior and traffic safety measures

9:15–9:30

Reflections from Day 1

9:30–10:30

‘Traffic psychology: a holistic perspective’

Ralf Risser

This lecture is an introduction to the human factors part of the course. We will discuss the role of road users in the traffic system in a holistic way and try to find the answer to the question ‘Why do people act in traffic the way they do?‘. Not least, questions dealing with human behavior, sustainability, and mobility will be tackled.

10:30–10:45

Coffee-break

10:45–11:45

‘Motivation and behavior of road users’

Anja Katharina Huemer

In this lecture, we will talk about the fundamentals of behavior in road traffic. Perception, motivation, and activation regulation models will be presented to explain choices, performance, and unsafe behaviors in traffic.

11:45–13:00

Lunch

13:00–14:00

‘Accounting for human factors in road system design’

Johan Vos

An interactive lecture on the relationship between human factors and road design. The lecture will touch upon various human factors (e.g. workload, perception, recognition), safe system approaches (Swedish Vision Zero, Swiss Cheese model), as well as theories on driving task, task performance and information processing.

14:00–15:00

‘Presentation skills for making impact’

Aliaksei Laureshyn

Majority of scientific presentations are utterly dull, sending the audience directly to sleep. The results that took months to produce go unnoticed, the important messages never reach to the right people. Sounds wrong, right?

In this talk we will cover the absolute fundamentals of making an engaging presentation. Who is your audience and how your research is relevant for them? What is the key message you want them to remember? How to deliver it so that people want to ask you for more details and read your full paper?

And, no, it is not about PowerPoint fancy functions.

15:00

Evaluation and closing

Contact

Course contents Registration & payments Local host
Anja Katharina Huemer
Attila Borsos
Clemens Kaufmann
Peter Wagner

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