“Trust – Traffic safety culture – A systematic transition towards shared responsibility for safe and sustainable mobility in the EU” of the Horizon Europe framework programme on transport research of the European Commission (Scientific Responsible) (2025-2028)

TRUST brings together the leading researchers and practitioners on traffic safety
culture (TSC) for the first time. They will join forces to leverage the potential of TSC
as a concept to support the 2030 50% reduction goals for road safety and further
sustainability goals.
TRUST will:
• Move from different interpretations of TSC to a common definition and academic
consensus, as well as a conceptual framework, covering transformation at
community and organisational level.
• Demonstrate how TSC supports both Safe System and sustainable mobility
approaches.
• Create the TRUST platform to provide guidance to authorities, companies and
decision-makers on all levels, including a low-threshold access to validated (self-)
assessment tools for benchmarking and applying appropriate intervention
strategies, using established and AI-based approaches.
• a European TSC index for national and subnational levels.
• Through 7 pilots, demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of TSC
measuring tools and transformation interventions.
Already 20 local authorities and companies in 12 countries agreed to participate in
TRUST pilots, not counting access to hundreds of driving and secondary schools.
The TRUST consortium covers all relevant areas of expertise (road safety, safety
culture, education & training, policy & guidance) and has an explicit Social Sciences
and Humanities orientation, with more than 50% SSH researchers as well as 50+
published papers and 100 projects on TSC. The group was put together balancing
partners from countries with high, mid and low road safety performances.
Together with its Associated Partners and Advisory Board, TRUST convenes the
leading experts not only from the EU, but also from the USA, CAN, AUS and JP. It
features safety culture experts from aviation, rail and maritime and provides links
with low- and middleincome countries. The TRUST pilots consider all road user
groups and road safety hot topics, including new technologies and mobility forms.