“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 levels.
• 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.
• Develop 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 middle-income countries. The TRUST pilots consider all road user groups and road safety hot topics, including new technologies and mobility forms.