eSafety promotion at ITS conference in Shanghai

eSafetyAware and the FIA Foundation promoted ESC at the International Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) conference and exhibition in Shanghai 15-17 October 2008. Safety is high on the Chinese transport policy agenda and the Chinese authorities and industries expressed interest in more cooperation with eSafetyAware on promoting eSafety technologies on the Chinese marked.

ITS stakeholders had the opportunity to experience ESC in the eSafetyAware/FIA Foundation stand where Bosch had provided an ESC simulator. The many visitors at the large transport exhibition took the opportunity during the three day event to learn more about the ESC systems and Jacob Bangsgaard from the FIA Foundation made a key note speech at the opening of the ITS conference where he presented the eSafety activities in Europe and internationally as promoted by eSafetyAware and the FIA Foundation.

The Director of ITS China, Mr Wang Xiaojing from the Chinese Ministry of Transport opened the exhibition and made the first test of the ESC simulator in the eSafetyAware stand. Mr Wang agreed to seek a closer cooperation between ITS China and eSafetyAware for eSafety campaigning in China. Today only 15% of new cars in China are equipped with ESC. For Europe the figure for ESC installation in new cars is 51%.

The number of traffic accidents in China was in 1951 around 6,000 but today the figure is more than 800,000, with more than 120,000 people killed and more than 600,000 injured. This leaves China as number 1 ranked country in the world for the death toll and the figure is accelerating by 10 per cent every year. The death toll and death rate per 10,000 automobiles in China is eight times higher than in the US. The main killer in the Chinese traffic is high speed combined with poor road quality on a major part of the road network.

According to a WHO forecast, traffic accidents will rank as the third biggest cause of deaths by 2020.