Romania

Road Police, which has attributions in field of road safety in Romania and is member of European bodies related with road safety (for instance: TISPOL), has established a black spot map showing dangerous spots. It was defined with European funding support under the project "Traffic and Accidents Database" (TRADB), that allowed the creation of a National database. The next step is to connect the National database to European database CARE.

The public sector Road Maps has indicated the investments required for improvements in the road networks and information infrastructure. The information is available at the address: www.mt.ro/engleza/index_eng.html.Romania is currently involved in few projects, but is active in pursuing international cooperation.

In the domain of the communications protocols for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications., a mobile phone operator took initiative to bring forward research activities.

Romania is upgrading its infrastructure by building new roads and infrastructure elements and improving the capacity and quality of traffic. Beside this, other improvements such as the creation of a Public Transport Management & Urban Traffic Control System in Bucharest, just started to be implemented. A network of CCTV cameras system with monitoring places are operating on the national road and on the motorways for automatic traffic incident detection, law enforcement, and video surveillance in real time.

The single European emergency call number 112 is the only emergency number in use in Romania. There is a public PSAP for each of the 41 counties. As for E112, caller location is not yet transmitted from the Mobile Network Operators into the PSAPs for calls from mobile phones. Information about eCall is still lacking both at government authorities level, necessary to support the implementation of the system, and at public information level.

The majority of national roads situated on the European corridor have RDS/TMC information services, such on the DN1 (national road between Bucharest and Brasov). Just a few pilot projects were initiated involving public-private partnerships to capture, process and provide real-time traffic, travel and road condition data including Floating Vehicle Data.

As for the standardisation process, Romania is following the rest of the EU adopting the standards of the EU standardisation bodies.

The study of the socio-economic benefits and of positive business cases to promote the introduction of intelligent integrated road safety systems is currently in progress. eSafety is currently a topic discussed in several sessions of conferences.

Romania created its own eSafety Forum in 2005 which has members from Road Police, Public transport operators, Transport Ministry, Consultative Council for Road Safety and others. More information is available on the Romanian website http://forum.e-safety.ro/.

From the point of view of ICT applied to clean mobility, there are some measures that are currently put in place, such as local traffic light synchronization in major cities in Romania (for main urban road with a medium speed 50 km/h – Green Wave), a pilot systems for bus priority in Bucharest and Constantza., and a light rail line with priority in intersection in Bucharest.

Roads

Romania’s road network totals 198,755 km of which 100,173 km is paved (including 113 km of expressways). Many of the roads are in poor condition due to insufficient funding for required reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Road density, with regard to both population and land area, is the lowest among all the EU candidate countries. In addition, regional and urban roads are often poorly marked and maintained and road signs are of poor quality and insufficient in number. The mountainous roads in Romania suffer from natural damage and erosion - especially during winter and spring each year.

The main transport modes in Romania are road vehicles and railways. The Romanian transportation system includes railways, highways, waterways (measuring 1,731 km in 2004), airports (61 in 2004), and one heliport.

The capital of Romania, Bucharest, has a public transport system based on trams and buses. Non-motorised transport does not play a significant role in mobility in the large cities, but both bicycles and horse drawn carriages are significant in and around the outlying villages.

Road safety situation

Since 2000, some 12,000 people have lost their lives on Romanian roads. Road safety statistics indicates the fatality risk is 11 fatalities/100,000 inhabitants and the fatality rate is 6/10,000 vehicles. The risk in terms of number of fatalities/billion vehicle km is 68, which is 7 times higher than the UK.

Both excessive speed and mixed traffic (e.g. horse-drawn carriages mixed with mopeds and modern automobiles) contribute to the number of road crashes, fatalities and injuries. The situation is particularly severe at night when visibility is low and the carriages are difficult to see. Another issue of primary concern is national roads passing through villages (linear villages). Facilities to slow traffic and side-walks for pedestrians are sparse and in some small villages they are missing all together.

Additional characteristics of the road safety situation include: poor infrastructure; a need for capacity building in road safety; poor road signing, poor vehicle quality; a need for greater decentralisation of road safety initiatives away from Bucharest and into the regions, and poor general road safety awareness among road users.

Police statistics from early 2005 indicate an increase of 4% in the number of road crashes compared to same period in 2004. Some organisations claim there is an underreporting of fatal crashes in Romania by 10 - 20%, meaning the fatality risk and crash rate may actually be much higher.

Road safety coordination

The Interministerial Council for Road Safety is responsible for road safety coordination in Romania. It is located in the Romanian Transport Authority (ARR) and chaired by the Vice-Minister of Transport.

The December 2004 elections resulted in a reduced status for the Interministerial Council. It was downgraded from a formal Directorate to a Service and the number of employees was reduced.

The Traffic Police (Ministry of Interior) plays an important role in road safety in Romania in the enforcement of traffic laws, education, and crash reporting. The National Company for Motorways and national roads, NCMNR, is responsible for safety conditions on the national roads.

Other actors in road safety

Numerous international and national private sector companies are involved in road safety in Romania and some work together under the GRSP umbrella.

Road safety initiatives are also undertaken by non-profit and civil society organisations such as the Romanian Road Haulers Union (UNTRR) and Romanian Association for International Road Transports (ARTRI), both IRU members, the Romanian Automobile Club a FIA founding member, Romanian Association of Road Victims and the Romanian Red Cross. The technical universities (Politehnica) in Romania together with the Romanian Society of Automotive Engineers (SIAR) developed a programme for training the trainers (Universities teachers from all technical universities all over the country) which is the base for the further post-academical studies.

Projects

• Road Systems Management
Academic Road Safety Courses - 2005

SIAR initiated the programme "Transfer of Knowledge" and is organising forums and symposia on current themes from the field of road safety, automotive engineering, road transportation, vehicle sales, technical inspections, repairs or expertise. The training is being conducted in collaboration wit...

• Safer Roads
Black spots improvement (completed)

The goal of this project was to improve visibility in poor weather conditions, during day and night. 3M and its partners developed a project to illustrate the possibilities for safety gains at three black spots using high performance reflective materials on traffic signs where conspicuity was con...

Improvement of road signalisation in cities by directional signs (completed)

The aim of the project was to raise awareness about the road safety benefits of high quality road signs indicating direction. The project took place in the municipality of Bucharest.

• Safer Roads Users
“The policeman my friend”

The aim of this project is to improve the road safety knowledge of school children. The project was initiated in 2003 in Bucharest and in 2005 the initiative was launched in ten additional localities in the country.
The project is fully support by the relevant authorities (Traffic Police a...
 
Safer way to school (completed)

The area around schools is often heavy with traffic and crashes involving children travelling to or from school are frequent.

Junior Bike (completed)

Michelin Junior Bike is a unique campaign to raise awareness among youth (4 – 11 years old) about the importance of using cycle helmets and about road safety.

Education about road safety on schools drivers (completed)

The project aimed to raise the driving skills and road safety awareness of 50 olympic students.

• Safer Vehicles
Improved vehicles by volunteer tire checks at fuel stations (completed)

The aim of this project was to raise awareness among motor vehicle drivers about the importance of proper tyre maintence and in particular tyre pressure as a factor in preventing traffic crashes.

Links

National Unique System for emergency calls - 112

For the first time, in Romania, the implementation of the unique number in Europe for emergency calls, 112, of the technical and organisational  calls’ reception  and reporting system referring to the fire incidents, accidents, medical emergencies, desastres and other events that involve the imediate response of the authorised agencies are consequently settled.

The working of 112 Emergency Call System is a natural need in a civilized country that has as main objective to protect its citizens; it is also an important objective sustained by all parties involved in communications’ market in Romania.

eSafety website for Romania