Transport accidents represent a serious public health problem. Nearly 1.3 million people die each year on the world’s roads and between 20 and 50 million people sustain non-fatal injuries. Numerous people lose their lives annually in maritime accidents, including 24000 in the fishing sector alone.
Thanks to traditional safety strategies targeting safety behaviours, technology and infrastructure the number of fatalities have steadily decreased, but there is still considerable room for safety improvement. One important accident risk factor not currently addressed by traditional transport safety interventions is poor safety culture.
It is widely recognized that safety culture is important for safety in organizational settings in hazardous industries, and the concept is applied to an ever increasing range of sectors and industries, including professional and private transport.
This research also suggested that if we are to fully understand its effects on safety in transport, we should study not only safety culture particular to organisations, but that particular to peer-groups, sectors, regions and nations.
In this project, we compare users of cars, powered two-wheelers, leisure boats, HGVs, buses and short sea cargo and ferry crew members in different contexts in Norway. We also compare safety culture in different transport modes and social contexts between Norway and Greece. We have chosen Greece as data show that it has a very poor transport safety record relative to most other EU countries.
The project is financed by the Norwegian Research Council, under the Transport 2025 program.
