Prishtina, 23-24 January 2018

In view of the construction of new roads and motorways in Kosovo and in the region over the recent years, road safety audit is an inevitable process that has to be implemented from the design to the construction phase, and continue with periodic oversight of the road network so that the number of road accidents is kept to a minimum.

Considering the importance of this issue and Kosovo’s needs for implementing this formal examination of road projects, the Kosovo Association of Motorization “AMRKS”, the College of Applied Technical Sciences “Tempulli” and the Institute of Road Safety and Transport Research organized the 5^th International Conference on Road Safety Audit and Reduction of Traffic Accidents.

Representatives of the highest domestic and international institutions with a legal mandate over and dealing with road audit and road safety issues participated at the opening of the Conference.

Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Mr. Rexhep Kadriu, addressing the participants in this conference, elaborated the work of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the actions undertaken in order to increase traffic safety and prevent traffic accidents, especially those resulting in death. According to him, the recommendations of this conference will be taken seriously by the Ministry of Infrastructure and they will be incorporated into the Ministry’s strategy for reducing accidents, especially fatal accidents.

On the other hand, the Chief of the Cabinet of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), Mr. Fehmi Hysenaj, focused on the need for increased cooperation of stakeholders of this field, such as the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, MEST and the Kosovo Police. According to him, in order to support this cooperation, inter-ministerial working groups will be established to raise public awareness on the role of road safety in general in order to contribute to the reduction of traffic accidents.

According to the Director of College “Tempulli”, Mr. Muhamed Krasniqi, it should be acknowledged that road safety is the responsibility of each and every of us. As such, it is not solely the responsibility of the Government or the police or of any institution exclusively.

The four separate panels of this Conference were enriched with the experiences and presentations of representatives from the European Transport Safety Council (Brussels), Kosovo Police, Ecomobilis (Zagreb), Smart City Srl (Rome), Kosovo Road Safety Forum (Prishtina), Traffic Police Department (Tirana), Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (Tirana), Institute of Road Safety and Transport Research (Prishtina), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (Prishtina) and Safety Research Unit-Department of Psychology- Middle East Technical University (Ankara).

As in previous years, the Conference was supported by the IRU Academy, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), the Center for Transport and Logistics Sapienza – the University of Rome, the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety and the Kosovo Forum for Road Safety.