A safer future: SWARCO’s Young Mobility Ambassadors Programme 

In the third of our trio of articles to coincide with Road Safety Week, Richard Neumann discusses the thinking behind SWARCO’s Young Mobility Ambassadors Programme and why the winning entry might be on to something…

“We wanted to sensitize the 14- to 19-year-old age group on the topic of road safety and make them ambassadors and role models for their peers,” says SWARCO’s Senior Manager for Communications and Events, Richard Neumann, of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Lighthouse Project, the “Young Mobility Ambassadors Programme.”

Statistics suggest that it is this age group that are most accident-prone in road traffic, in no small part due to distraction. Driven by the notion that perhaps the young people themselves might be best-placed to come up with a solution, in late 2024 SWARCO launched its Young Mobility Ambassadors Programme, reaching 660 students from 16 schools all over Austria.

They dealt with “distraction in road traffic, eg by smartphones” and over the next few months contributed 28 project ideas, mostly in the form of videos. The 3 best projects were selected by a jury, and the winning classes got between €2000 and €4000 for their class (to be used for class excursions in Austria or to adjacent countries). The jury consisted of a high-ranking police officer, representatives from the Austrian Road Safety Board, SWARCO experts and, interestingly, traffic psychologists, who assessed the projects based on their relevance, creativity, and impact.

Eyes on the prize

The winning project, developed by a technical class from Innsbruck, involved using a 3D printer to create a model intersection with traffic lights complemented by projections of additional red or green lights onto zebra crossings, aiming to alert distracted pedestrians.

"The winning project, developed by a technical class from Innsbruck, involved using a 3D printer to create a model intersection with traffic lights complemented by projections of additional red or green lights onto zebra crossings"

The second prize went to a school in Waidhofen for developing an app that rewards young drivers with insurance discounts for safe behaviour, while the third prize was awarded to a class from Bregenz for a humorous video demonstrating unsafe driving behaviour.

The winners received their awards at a ceremony in SWARCO Traffic World in Wattens, including an official certificate designating them as road safety ambassadors (not to mention a couple of hours playing American football with the coach of SWARCO Raiders Tirol).

You can view the top three entries by clicking on the links below:

WINNER 

Class 2AHEL from HTL Innsbruck (Tyrol)

RUNNER-UP 

Class 3AHWIM from HTL Waidhofen an der Ybbs (Lower Austria)

SECOND RUNNER-UP 

Class 4BA from HAK Bregenz (Vorarlberg)

This, however, does not tell even half the tale.

Something meaningful

“The story behind it goes back a little further,” says Neumann, “because for four or five years we have been dealing with corporate social responsibility (CSR) at a bigger scale, because we think CSR and sustainability are very important topics, as is mitigating climate change. We came up with an ideas contest within the entire SWARCO group, inviting our colleagues to come up with suggestions. We defined criteria saying that it should not be something short term, but something longer term, which stretches over 10 years and more and can develop further and further over the years.

“Secondly, it should be meaningful for the entire SWARCO group and then there should be an environmental aspect and a social impact. Lastly, it needed to have a SWARCO context and be relevant for the company.

"We defined criteria saying that it should not be something short term, but something longer term, which stretches over 10 years and more and can develop further and further over the years."

Neumann and the team around SWARCO Head of CSR, Daniel Meier, res0lved to do something for vulnerable road users with a particular emphasis on children.

“When we looked at the accident statistics in Austria, the group of people between 14 and 24 years old are the most accident-prone target group. There are a lot of injuries taking place in this age group, and that's why we targeted them specifically,” he explains. “Those aged between 14 and 19 are those that are applying for driving licenses, so we felt that it was important to sensitize young people to road safety issues and for the youngsters to become a good example for their peers.”

Driven to distraction 

Neumann’s point is all too relevant – the thinking behind it being that if 15-year-olds are not crossing roads safely because they are distracted by social media or music, for example, then what will stop them becoming distracted drivers in two years’ time when they get behind the wheel of a car?

“There is quite an organizational effort behind the whole thing, because to approach hundreds of schools all over Austria is not an easy thing, but we did this together with an opinion poll institute from Innsbruck called IMAD, and they approached all the schools. They made a road safety assessment for us, asking the headmasters and the teachers how important road safety is at school and in their curriculum and then we used that data to help us create the Young Mobility Ambassadors Programme,” says Neumann.

We asked the headmasters and the teachers how important road safety is at school and in their curriculum and then we used that data to help us create the Young Mobility Ambassadors Programme

“We invited the young people to suggest what could be done to prevent or mitigate distraction. They could create a video, animation, a board game, whatever they wanted. This was November 2024 and the deadline for submissions was February 2025. The winners were announced in April and they were invited to a ceremony at SWARCO Traffic World.

“The winning class used a 3D printer and they created a small intersection situation with traffic lights, and in addition to the red and green and amber lights, they made additional projections of red or green light onto the zebra crossing, so if you are crossing the road with your smartphone in front of your eyes, not watching left or right, the additional light effect is something that could be useful,” adds a clearly impressed Neumann. “We might actually look into taking this is idea into development for SWARCO, but the interesting thing is, we already have a product called SafeLight. Which is a traditional red light at a traffic light shining down onto the pavement. When you pass this red light, you get a light impulse, and you are made aware that you have to be careful when crossing the street.”

What's in it for us?

The topic of incentivisation has been covered on a number of occasions by Intertraffic and it’s probably not unfair to say that the financial incentives offered by SWARCO may well have proved popular, among the students, but so did another of the prizes on offer. In the afternoon after the prize-giving ceremony the students were treated to a training session with legendary American football coach Florian Grein of the SWARCO Raiders Tirol, one of the most successful teams in the Austrian Football League and on the European level.

“One of the students asked if they could do that every Wednesday instead of English!” Neumann joked.

"One of the students asked if they could play American Football with the SWARCO Raiders Tirol every Wednesday instead of their English lessons!”

Of course, the story doesn’t end there either. SWARCO already have plans for the next YMAP iteration, still on the theme of road safety.

“Among many other things, we are a road safety company after all,” says Neumann. “So we have now made the call for the second phase, because we have invited schools all over Austria and Baden-Württemberg in South-West Germany for another topic, which is why alcohol and drugs have no place in traffic. So now we have something of a competition between Austria and Germany and in April next year we will have another winners’ ceremony at SWARCO Traffic World, but this time, we will invite all the best three projects, and not just the winning class.”