The CAMBER Project, dedicated to improving safety and maintenance on urban and secondary roads across Europe, is underway led by a consortium of 14 partners from nine countries, including research institutions, road authorities, and industry experts.

The Connected and Adaptive Maintenance for Safer Urban and Secondary Roads Project (‘CAMBER’) is a three-year initiative funded by the European Union. It aims to address pressing challenges in road safety and infrastructure management by integrating real-time data insights with cost-effective solutions, innovative interventions, and digital technologies.

The project will demonstrate its approaches through pilot sites in five European countries: Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Croatia, and Spain.

Europe’s dense network of urban and secondary roads, which plays a critical role in connecting communities, accounts for a significant proportion of traffic fatalities. These roads often face challenges such as inconsistent design standards, limited monitoring, and diverse road user needs, including vulnerable groups cyclists, pedestrians, and powered-two-wheelers.

CAMBER seeks to tackle these issues by providing road managers with tools and methods to assess and improve road safety efficiently and effectively.

The project will use data from telematics, vehicle sensors, smartphones, and road user feedback to develop real-time safety assessments. This information will help road managers identify risks and prioritize maintenance tasks to create safer road environments. The project will create digital twins of road networks to simulate conditions and predict maintenance needs. These models will provide road managers with actionable insights, improving the efficiency of maintenance planning.

The CAMBER project partners gathered in Zagreb from 3-4 June for a successful and productive two-day consortium meeting.

Day 1 focused on technical and methodological updates from Work Package 2, including progress made, identified challenges, and planning for 2025. Work Package 3 sessions presented developments in sensor technologies and the use of probe vehicles for data collection. Additional discussions highlighted the advancements in digital twin modelling under Work Package 4, as well as pilot testing and evaluation strategies under Work Package 5. The day concluded with a session on communication and dissemination plans within Work Package 6.

Day 2 featured an on-site visit with CAMBER partners in National Access Point of Croatia, learning about their platform for collecting and sharing traffic and road data, the main presenter was Slaviša Babić, Head of the Traffic Department at Croatian Roads.

The meeting reaffirmed the consortium’s shared commitment to advancing road safety through the use of real-time data and innovative, cost-effective solutions. Special thanks are extended to the European Institute for Road Assessment (EIRA) and the University of Zagreb Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (FPZ) for their excellent organisation and hosting, as well as to all partners for their active engagement and collaboration.

Partners previously met in January for the project’s kick off at the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC) in Lisbon. They visited the city of Cascais, one of the project’s pilot sites, where they learned about local mobility initiatives and Cascais’ unique challenges and approaches applied to its road networks and mobility strategies.

As CAMBER progresses, it promises to contribute valuable insights and solutions to help reduce traffic fatalities and enhance the safety of urban and secondary roads throughout Europe.

Led by ERTICO, the project’s communication, dissemination and exploitation activities will ensure that CAMBER’s findings reach a wide audience, including policymakers, road managers, and industry leaders. This effort encourages a comprehensive understanding of the project’s contributions and support the adoption of its solutions across Europe.

Project partners include ERTICO, EIRA, iRAP, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research, Laboratorio Nacional de Engenharia Civil, iSENSE Group, BEMOBILE, FPZ, UHASSELT, Vicomtech, Agilysis, Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), e-Trikala, Ministerio de Transportes y Movilidad Sostenible, and Red de Carreteras del Estado.

Follow progress on the project’s website camber-project.eu, LinkedIn page or by signing up to the newsletter.