Instead of limiting the use or spaces available for motorcycles, as many cities do, Barcelona prefers to promote a series of measures to reduce the number of accidents involving two wheels.
Territorial governance and road safety in the territory itself is a subject that can have multiple interpretations, and it is not certain that there are dogmas and unique paths to achieve the objective, shared by all, maximum reduction of accidents and the number of deaths on the roads. However, these are objectives which are grafted onto transversal paths where technology, urban planning, territorial protection, sustainability have an impact, to name only a few of the perspectives and arguments that government officials must take into account. consideration when talking about measures aimed at guaranteeing the maximum possible road safety.
While some municipalities tend to compress the space available for vehicles and motorcycles in particular with the effect of discouraging their use at least in certain specific areas, in Spain the city of Barcelona and the General Directorate of Traffic are collaborating to solve the problem of accidents involving motorcycles and mopeds.
We start from a hypothesis: in Barcelona 33% of vehicles in circulation are motorcycles and 86% of drivers seriously injured in accidents are motorcyclists, while the sad statistics of victims count 16 motorcyclists dead in urban accidents in 2022. Based on this data, the two entities signed an agreement on December 19, 2022 in which they commit to implementing a series of initiatives aimed at increasing the safety of two-wheeled vehicles, all within the framework of the 2030 Agenda, a multidisciplinary plan for sustainable development: in this case, not simple declarations of intent, but studies and surveys to analyze mobility, evaluate compliance with regulations and verify the effectiveness of measures applicable to users of motorcycles and mopeds with a distinct focus also on accidents of vehicles shared or in use for delivery: the agreement also provides for the analysis of the behavior of motorcyclists.
The objective is therefore to analyze and intervene on the abilities and behaviors of motorcyclists with the aim of carrying out training and safe driving courses, on the one hand, while a second axis of intervention concerns the Technological innovation through which to model projects that allow introducing technological systems to support motorcyclists and identify critical places in terms of accidents.
“As part of this agreement, Barcelona City Hall, the BIT Habitat Foundation, Fira de Barcelona and the DGT will announce in January the launch of the Urban Challenge prize for the reduction of motorcycle accidents. The prize pool will be 100 euros in grants.”
