In 2015 the Vias institute (formerly Belgian Road Safety Institute), in cooperation with research institutes and road safety organizations from 17 European countries, launched the ESRA initiative (E-Survey of Road users’ Attitudes; homepage: www.esranet.eu). The initiative apparently meets current needs. Already the first ESRA survey (ESRA1) rapidly grew to a global survey across 38 countries (figure 1) and is expected to grow to over 50 countries across 6 continents in the next edition (ESRA2).

The aim of the project is to provide scientific support to road safety policy by generating comparable national data on the current road safety situation. Using a uniform sampling method, an identical questionnaire and uniform programming of the questionnaire, allows for full comparability among the countries. The first ESRA survey (ESRA1) was conducted online using representative samples (N=1,000) of the national adult populations in 38 countries (online internet access panel).

A common questionnaire was developed and translated into 33 national langue versions. The field work was carried out in three waves: (1) June/July 2015, (2) November 2016, (3) July/August 2017. In total, ESRA1 covers almost 40,000 respondents from 38 countries across the world. The themes covered in the survey are, amongst others: ‘the use of different transport modes’, ‘involvement in road crashes’, ‘safety feeling’, ‘concerns about road safety’, ‘self-declared behaviour’, ‘attitudes towards road safety’, ‘acceptability of unsafe traffic behaviour’, ‘enforcement’, and ‘support for policy measures’. For most of these themes the ESRA1 survey investigated the following four topics: speeding, driving under influence, distraction and seat belt use. Moreover, the results can be linked to sociodemographic characteristics of the respondent such as: gender, age or educational level. ESRA1 survey targeted all type of road users, mainly car drivers but also other groups such as motorcyclists, cyclists or pedestrians (e.g. helmet use).

The current intention is to repeat this survey on a triennial basis, retaining a core set of questions in every survey allowing the development of time series of road safety performance indicators. The next edition (ESRA2) will be launched in October 2018. More information can be found on: www.esranet.eu; Meesmann et al., 2018; Torfs et al., 2016).