TA CR fund granted to AAU Faculty!

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Bolcha and the rest of his team! Our faculty have been granted funds from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) for a new research project regarding traffic accident statistics. What does this project mean for the future of road risks and how does it affect questions surrounding accidents?

What is the project about?
This project aims to create a new generation of traffic accident statistics for Czech Police Headquarters and to bring new information on the risk factors associated with them. This project responds to the need to improve information and to make it more precise. Specifically, these statistics will help to identify better the key risk factors leading to accidents: we will be able to define more precisely, for example, the amount at risk of an accident when the driver has a certain amount of alcohol in their blood or how much the type of car or age of driver matter when accident risk comes to question.

Who is involved in this project? 
The project team is composed of researchers from Anglo-American University and Faculty of Law at Charles University. AAU researchers are Dr. Peter Bolcha and Doc. Matúš Šucha (external research fellow, expert in driving psychology) and the team from Charles University led by Dr. Josef Montag with the help of a research assistant. Next to academic team, the project has a so-called ‘application guarantor’. This role is held by the Czech Traffic Police Headquarters who will take part during the development of the software and will be main user of the project output. 

Why do you think it is important?
Within the European Union, the Czech Republic is one of the countries with an above-average number of fatal traffic accidents. Even though the number of accidents had been decreasing since 1990s, for more than a decade, until this decrease stopped few years ago and responsible authorities are looking for new ways how to further improve the current situation. The whole project was created at the initiative of the Czech Traffic Police Headquarters and has received the financial support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic.

What are the expected outcomes?
Ultimate aim of the project is to help to improve traffic safety, and thus to bring benefits to the whole society. Above all, it is expected that traffic accidents will be reduced thanks to more effective police supervision and better targeted preventive activities based on new information brought by the regular new statistics and analyses. Both mentioned safety measures have an empirically proven impact on increasing traffic safety and thus reducing the number and severity of accidents.

What is the TA CR fund?
Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) is a Czech government agency. TACR’s goal is to encourage cooperation between research organizations, business sector and government institutions. Their focus is to support research, experimental development, and innovation. TACR creates grant competition several times a year and funds projects with the best evaluations. Interestingly, AAU project ranked as the 5th out of 126 applications in the current call.

More about TACR can found at their website.