Minister of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Oleg Butković said that traffic safety is a key imperative in project planning, particularly in road traffic, where there are still too many casualties.
Electronic road tolls, safety at black spots
“Through activities of the ministry we have put emphasis on the safety aspects of all our projects,” Butković said at the conference.
Through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan the government has secured funds for a electronic road toll system so that drivers will no longer have to stop at toll stations, he said.
Butković announced a project worth HRK 69 million, which is being implemented by the Hrvatske Ceste road management company in cooperation with the Interior Ministry, to improve safety on the state roads, in particular at 32 black spots where accidents are frequent.
Also being implemented is a HRK 118 million project to develop an intelligent traffic system. Under the project, the entire IT equipment for traffic management will be upgraded, and a national access point has been established in Karlovac to providing traffic information in real time.
Police Chief Nikola Milina said that responsibility in road traffic no longer lies with road users but with the creators and managers of the traffic system.
The use of state-of-the-art technology is an important factor in road safety and one of the better examples is fixed speed meters, Milina said.
Croatia currently has 300 fixed speed meters and plans to install more.
Avenoso: Speed meter system to decrease road fatalities by 20%
The Executive Director of the European Transport Safety Council, Antonio Avenoso, presented the Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) system for vehicle speed control.
The system reads road signs and helps drivers control the speed of their vehicle. Drivers can turn it off, but the system will continue to warn them if they are over the speed limit.
ISA is expected to reduce road fatalities by 20 per cent, increase interest in walking and cycling, reduce noise pollution and result in ewer speeding fines.
