Study Visit to Lund University, Sweden , 14 November 2008 to 14 December 2008.
By Willem Badenhorst Pr Tech Eng. (Senior Technologist Public Works and Infrastructure Development Department, Tshwane).
Background:
The Swedish Government channels a vast amount of money to Overseas Development Aid (ODA) through the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). In 2006 this amounted to approximately 53% of the total Swedish ODA (SEK 15,6 billion, about USD 2,0 billion). SIDA employs about 900 full time personnel of which about 150 are located outside of Sweden.
The overall goal of Swedish Development cooperation is to contribute to improving the living conditions of the poor in less developed countries. To this end SIDA runs, among other things, Advanced International Training Programmes in various fields. Other institutions are contracted for specialised tasks such as presenting courses on specific subjects to delegates from the developing world.
As part of this programme, Lund University, in the south of Sweden, has been contracted for the past few years to present a course named "Road Traffic Safety". Two four week training courses are presented every year.
The first phase (four weeks) of the first course is presented at Lund University in March / April of each year with phase 2 (about one week) being presented in one of the participating countries in October / November of the same year. The first phase of the second course is presented at Lund University in November / December of each year with phase 2 being presented in one of the participating countries in May / June of the following year.
The target countries for the first course are Africa, Asia, Latin America and Central / Eastern Europe.
The target group for the second course is Africa.
The Road Traffic Safety Course - November / December 2008.
I was fortunate enough to be selected to attend the above course at Lund University as part of a South African Delegation of four people.
Two technologists from the City of Tshwane attended the same course during November - December 2007. There was also a member of the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department, as well as a senior manager from the Road Traffic Management Corporation, as part of the South African Delegation.
The target group for this course is Medium Level Managers working with policy and development issues within road administration, police agencies, traffic safety authorities as well as non governmental organisations (NGO's) working in the field of road traffic studies.
The course was attended by four delegates from Ethiopia, three from Ghana, four from Malawi, three from Namibia, four from Nigeria, four from South Africa, four from Tanzania as well as two delegates from Zambia.
The delegates were more or less equally divided between engineers / technologists, police officials and officials from road safety organisations.
The course leader was Professor Andras Varhelyi, a traffic engineer, who has had 17 years teaching experience. His main fields of interest are Traffic Safety management, Speed Management, Traffic Surveys, Black-spot analysis, Behavioural Studies and Road Safety Measures.
Various other experts also presented lectures. These included lecturers from Lund University covering a wide variety of disciplines including engineering, psychology and teacher education. Various other lecturers from outside were also invited to present lectures. These included academics from other Swedish Universities, lecturers from a police academy, lecturers from a training institute for emergency services as well as many other experts from other organisations.
One of the first presentations was about Swedish society and Sweden as a whole. Experts included personnel from the Swedish National Society for Road Safety, Bilprovningen (a state run organisation doing regular roadworthiness and emission testing on all vehicles in Sweden), the Swedish Road Administration, the Danish Road Administration, the Danish Road Safety Council as well as consulting engineering practices. This proved extremely interesting.
Main Topics of the Course.
· Road Safety in a global, historic and international perspective
· Accident theories
· Behavioural models
· Risk theories
· Socio-psychological principles
· Road traffic system – Man, machine and environment
· Different user’s special problems and needs (persons with disabilities, the elderly and children are some examples)
· Analytical tools for traffic safety evaluation
· The role of different stakeholders in traffic safety
· The role and effect of legislation, traffic safety schemes, law enforcement, road user training, engineering measures, emergency services and campaigns on traffic safety
· National databases on accidents, vehicles, driving licences and road parameters
· Co-ordination, administration and funding of traffic safety work
· Benefit-Cost calculations.
The main activity of the course was individual project work. This was done by means of case studies which are related
to the above topics.
Case Studies:
The class was divided into nine groups who had to work together on seven case studies. Each group had to prepare and present presentations on the following subjects:
· How to measure road safety
· Traffic safety theory
· Organizational principles
· Vulnerable road users
· Road Safety Measures
· How to evaluate the effects of road safety measures
· Benefit / cost analysis
Academic evaluation:
This course was extremely well researched, presented and organised. The organisers of this course went to great
lengths to get extremely knowledgeable lecturers to present the course.
Technical Site visits:
Many site visits were arranged. These included the following:
· Visit to Bilprovignen in Malmo to experience the roadworthiness testing of cars.
· Visit to the Malmo City Council where road safety projects were demonstrated to the group
· Visit to the accessibility track to learn about problems experienced by persons with disabilities
· An excursion around Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden. During this visit some innovative roundabout sites, a heavy vehicle weighing station, roads which are known as “two plus one” (two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other for two or three kilometres after which it is changed to two lanes in the other direction), and roads where the speed limit dynamically changes (e.g. depending on whether there is a bus at the bus stop) as well as several other interesting developments were visited.
General – Sweden:
Sweden is a country roughly half the size of South Africa. It is more than two thousand kilometres long reaching into the Arctic Circle in the north. The country has the second best traffic safety record on earth (after Great Britain) measured using the annual mortality rate as a criterion. Sweden has fewer than 500 fatalities on its roads annually whereas South Africa had the same number of fatalities during the first three weeks of December 2008.
Sweden enjoys a high standard of living and the residents enjoy outdoor recreation, especially aquatic sports in summer and mainly indoor sports like handball during the winter. It remained neutral in both the First and Second World War and this, no doubt, contributes to the high standard of living. Sweden is also very conscious of energy efficiency and there are a large number of windmills, which develop electricity. This electricity is fed into the national grid.
Sweden is the country in Europe with the third highest number of bicycles. Very good provision is made for both pedestrian and bicycle facilities. The public transport system is also very well developed and is used extensively by the people. The Swedes are a law-abiding nation and there is very little crime.
General - Lund:
Lund is a very old city with a population of about 100000 although it feels bigger. There is a school (Klosterskolan), which has been in existence since 1085 (923 years) and a pharmacy, which has been in the same position since 1651. There are only 5 policemen permanently stationed in Lund. Lund University was founded in about 1437 as an institute of higher learning, converting to a university in 1666. It is the largest university in Sweden with more than 38000 full time students. Lund University is the second oldest university in Sweden after the University of Uppsala. Tuition is free for Swedish citizens.
The university offers courses in many varied disciplines including Theology, Medicine, Law, Engineering, the Arts and Music. There are currently more than 500 Masters Degree programs which are taught entirely in English at Swedish universities. The Lund University has a division called Ideon which works as an “incubator” to develop good ideas into functional firms. The headquarters of Sony-Ericsson, Tetrapak, Alfa-Laval as well as Astra-Zeneca (to name a few) are all in Lund. These firms all originated from Ideon.
Word of thanks:
I would like to extend a hearty word of thanks to the City of Tshwane who made it possible for Nomsa Sibanyoni and I to attend this course. I would further like to extend an equally hearty word of thanks to the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and Lund University for inviting us to attend this course.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
