The Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) is undertaking a groundbreaking research project designed to reduce collisions, injuries, and fatalities on Canadian roadways in partnership with Medidas Digital. This project is funded through Transport Canada’s Enhanced Road Safety Transfer Payment Program (ERSTPP). The project is leveraging advanced game-based technology to deliver a Safe Roads Challenge across Canada.
Participating drivers will download and use the Safe Roads Challenge mobile application that monitors driver behaviour and incentivizes safe driving through rewards and competition. TIRF will analyze anonymized data collected from participants to investigate ways to positively change driver behaviour and ultimately reduce the frequency and severity of vehicle collisions, making roads safer for families and communities. Driving behaviour data recorded and scored includes vehicle speed, acceleration, braking, cornering, steadiness and phone handling. The impact of different messaging and incentives for improving driving behaviours with respect to different driver demographics will be measured and evaluated.
TIRF will also study real-time, anonymous data on driver risk to find high-risk areas in cities and rural areas. A web-based dashboard will display this data, using special technology to group and highlight risk patterns. In co-operation with the Province of Alberta and the City of Edmonton, driver risk data will be analyzed to find links between past and future crashes as well as enforcement data including fines, photo radar and other relevant traffic related events. During the course of the project, driver risk profiles will be created in areas with higher frequencies or severities of events to then correlate to events that occur during the project period. The effects of driver behaviour change interventions on the areas of driver risk density and the accompanying driver risk profiles will be analyzed as well.
Visit the Safe Roads Challenge to learn more: https://saferoadschallenge.com/great-canadian-driving-games/
