14 – 15 May 2025, Bulgaria – The Bulgarian Branch Association Road Safety (BBARS), in collaboration with the Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) and the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR), organized the “On the Road to Vision Zero” Road Safety Conference, providing professionals a platform to focus on and discuss key road safety issues in their fields and access innovative solutions from international practices.  

iRAP was represented by Dr. Suzy Charman, Executive Director of the Road Safety Foundation UK; Associate Professor Marko Ševrović, Director and Senior Road Safety Expert, European Institute of Road Assessments (EIRA) and Head of Transport Planning Department at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at the University of Zagreb; and Olivera Rozi, iRAP’s Safer Journeys Lead for Europe.  

Connecting with different organizations to share and discuss best practices, the iRAP team spoke in different sessions and workshops:  

• Dr. Suzy Charman was a panelist during the first session, “Strategies for Vision Zero”. She was joined by speakers representing CEDR, the State Agency Road Safety (SARS), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the Transport Community.  

• Associate Professor Marko Ševrović spoke during the second session of the day titled “Road Safety Investment and Strategies.” He shared some lessons from Croatia and academia on how we can better integrate safety into investment planning in the transport sector. He was joined by a panel of speakers representing the European Investment Bank (EIP); The World Bank; the Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA); and the Public Works Department (PWD) in Cyprus. 

On the second day, a specific iRAP workshop was held at the University of Architecture Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia. The full day workshop was facilitated by Associate Professor Marko Ševrović and iRAP’s Center of Excellence FPZ key experts Dr. Bojan Jovanović and Juraj L. Vertlberg , joined by iRAP’s Safer Journeys Lead for Europe to cover funding and project opportunities.  

This was a great opportunity to showcase iRAP’s tools and resources and cover topics such as; 

• The Safe System Approach 
• IRAP methodology 
• Road safety risk assessments 
• Safer Road Investment Plan development 
• iRAP’s online software ViDA and how it can be utlised to improve road infrastructure in Europe.
• iRAP Route Review Tool  that enables a systematic assessment of road segments by allowing users to log risks, attributes, and road safety observations directly during field inspections.”
• How AI technologies within the AiRAP and ViDA can be used to speed up road assessments and fuel more investment into road infrastructure. 

The Conference coincided with the 8th UN Global Road Safety Week to send a clear message about the importance of road safety, policy discussions, and global innovations to achieve streets that are cleaner, greener, and healthier.