A Systematic Review of Traffic Safety Culture in Relation to New Mobility Modes, Technology and Policy Developments
Abstract
Road safety progress in Europe has slowed as the transport landscape has grown more complex through new mobility modes, advancing vehicle technologies and changing patterns of road use. Traffic Safety Culture (TSC), the shared values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and patterns of behaviour that shape how traffic safety is understood and enacted within a meaningfully defined group of actors in the transport system, has gained importance as a framework for addressing these challenges. This study systematically reviews recent developments shaping road transport and their implications for TSC across three thematic areas: micromobility and new transport modes, technological innovations and digitalisation, and evidence-based policy making and governance. Three searches, following PRISMA 2020, yielded 40 unique publications. These were synthesised narratively using a common framework of ten research points, distinguishing conceptual arguments, observed associations and evidence of effects. TSC emerges as a multidimensional, context-dependent construct shaped by behavioural, socio-cultural, institutional and technological factors. Behaviour is frequently proposed as the link between TSC and safety, but direct evidence is limited: the literature is dominated by cross-sectional questionnaires, intention proxies and conceptual papers from high-income countries, and few publications use recorded safety outcomes. The near absence of TSC micromobility research is itself a key finding.