Improving Traffic Safety: A New Systems Approach

A guiding principle of modern traffic safety professionals attempting to reduce the risks associated with traffic is to holistically address traffic safety as a multidisciplinary partnership issue. The systems approach focuses on the relationships and dependencies between the various elements of the traffic system. The C3-R3 Systems Approach to traffic safety is introduced; the building blocks of the C3-R3 approach are three entities (the road user, the vehicle, and the road environment), three pre-crash timeline phases (creation, cultivation, and conduct), and three postcrash timeline phases (response, recovery, and reflection). This approach is proposed as a framework for multidisciplinary traffic safety professionals to research traffic safety issues in an integrated, systematic manner. The C3-R3 approach provides an enhanced systematic framework that more clearly identifies the stages at which traffic safety professionals can intervene to promote road safety. The graphical representation of the C3-R3 system, as presented, emphasizes the convergence of the entities as the timeline proceeds toward a crash event and their subsequent redivergence in the postcrash timeline. Every combination of entity and timeline phase represents a cell in the C3-R3 system; the contents of each cell represent the individual elements that traffic safety professionals need to focus on and understand in order to reduce the crash risk. The C3-R3 Systems Approach represents a starting point to encapsulate the systems approach concepts in traffic safety. It is expected that as more professionals adopt systems thinking, the C3-R3 approach will continue to evolve, expand, and improve.