Transport for West Midlands: boosting road safety using ground breaking near miss data and technology
Launched in late 2023, this is a large-scale, collaborative UK-first road safety project between Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and transportation technology supplier VivaCity.
This presentation will discuss TfWM's use of state-of-the-art AI-powered computer vision technology featuring ‘near miss’ detection to help the authority better understand and analyse proactively incident hotspots, and reduce KSIs in the West Midlands.
Darren Divall and Shane Foley will share findings and results from the project. They will also share insights about how this innovative near miss data can support evidence based decision making, plug the gap in missing KSI data, and how it has the potential to change funding structures at DfT to provide the opportunity for funding to be awarded based on innovative tech and data use - positively shaping the future of road safety programmes for good.
Darren Divall, TfWM’s Road Safety Manager, and Shane Foley, VivaCity’s Strategic Partner Lead
Darren Divall’s role at TfWM is to enable, support and facilitate road safety improvements across the West Midlands Combined Authority region. As Lead Coordinator for the 16 Regional Road Safety Partnership organisations, Darren ensures delivery of a robust and fit for purpose strategic approach aimed at achieving a 50% reduction in the number of killed and seriously injured casualties by 2030.
His current focus is on the delivery of a Regional Road Safety Action Plan based on robust statistical evidence and community based insight, along with a new multi-agency Operational Working Agreement for average speed enforcement.
Darren began his road safety career in 1998 and has worked for three UK local authorities as well as TRL. He has over 20 years of international experience, formulating multi-sector road safety strategies and action plans, conducting road safety management capacity reviews, data collection and analysis, identifying solutions for vulnerable road users, delivering behaviour change and education programmes, and building capacity at all levels through research, technical notes and training.
Darren is a former Chairperson of the Institute of Road Safety Officers and Head of Road Safety GB Academy. He is also a judge for the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards and represents TfWM on the PACTS Safe System Forum.
Shane Foley has extensive experience in both operational management and sales management roles, across large multinational mobility providers and start-up tech-based organisations. He is passionate about sustainable, green travel and working towards making our communities safer, cleaner and generally better places to live.
Shane's role at VivaCity allows him to work alongside combined and local authorities to ensure they can use our cutting edge AI technology to have the best, most accurate data possible to make impactful decisions on the way we live.