The SAFE-MOVE project has received 5 million Euros in funding to improve road safety, using XR technology to explore how users feel on the road.
Funded by the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, SAFE-MOVE aims to onboard 23 partners from across Europe, creating a consortium that will develop actionable guidance for safer and
more inclusive active mobility and micromobility system.
The project is led by Yan Feng, assistant professor and director of the mobility in eXtended Reality Lab, TU Delft.
SAFE-MOVE will look at both active and perceived safety using XR technologies, with the aim of encouraging more people to choose active modes of transport. The TU Delft
team will be supported by a consortium of multidisciplinary experts including engineering, behavioural science, XR, AI, urban planning, and policy.
The project will use XR, AI, and
data on traffic, infrastructure, vehicles, and health to allow the researchers to investigate scenarios that would otherwise remain unexplored. The study will put a spotlight on interactions between
users with differing masses and speeds, such as conventional bikes, e-bikes, and e-cargo bikes.
The research will help cities shape policies and interventions that support active modes
of transport, with the most promising interventions to be implemented and tested through pilot projects in several European cities including Amsterdam, Zurich, Rhodes, and Novi Sad. Research from
these real world deployments will be used to further refine the algorithms and predictive models.
Feng explains: “We will study these issues with a human-centred approach. I
am delighted that we have assembled a diverse team that allows us to look at road safety from multiple perspectives, ranging from behaviour and health to technology and AI.”