What is Vision Zero?

What is Vision Zero?

When Sweden’s infrastructure minister asked what the country’s long-term road-safety target should be.

His Director of Traffic Safety replied zero.

His name was Claes Tingvall, and the road safety strategy he designed, Vision Zero, has been adopted by dozens of countries and hundreds of cities worldwide.

Vision Zero asks . . . . . .

“What would our streets, roads and places look like if we designed them on the assumption that people should not die simply because they made a mistake?”

Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death globally for children and young adults aged 5 to 29 years, claiming approx.1.16 million lives each year and injuring up to 50 million more.

Is death and serious injury the inevitable price of mobility? Learn More

Vision Zero rejects that death and injury is the price we pay for mobility and as with all great stories there is both a simple origin & a complex one.

The Simple Story

The collision that sparked the Strategy now known as Vision Zero occurred in 1995 on the E4 near Stockholm. Five young people travelling in a three door Peugeot 205 GTI hatchback aquaplaned at highspeed colliding with a concrete structure supporting a streetlight. All five passengers were killed on impact.

The Complex Origin

The complexity of Vision Zero is that it considers that a safe transport system cannot depend on everyone behaving perfectly.

Instead, the system is designed so that an ordinary mistake does not become a fatal one. Responsibility is consequently shared between the person using the road and the people who design, plan, regulate and operate it.

1. To Err is Human

Vision Zero starts with the uncomfortable reality that people make mistakes. We speed, become distracted, misjudge gaps, walk into roads and sometimes ignore rules. A system that depends on perfect behaviour will fail. The challenge is designing roads that forgive human error.

2. Speed, mass and vulnerability interact

A collision between a car and a pedestrian is fundamentally different from a collision between two pedestrians. The outcome is strongly influenced by speed, vehicle mass and the vulnerability of the person involved. This means Vision Zero is about preventing crashes from becoming fatal or life-changing.

3. Responsibility is distributed

There isn’t one person who can “fix” road safety. Responsibility is shared between:

• drivers and other road users
• road designers and engineers
• planners
• politicians
• vehicle manufacturers
• police and enforcement agencies
• transport operators
• employers and institutions
• communities.

That makes Vision Zero inherently political and organisational. Someone has to decide what gets prioritised, what gets funded and whose needs are designed for.

4. There are competing objectives

Roads are expected to do many things simultaneously: move traffic, support businesses, provide access, enable deliveries, accommodate buses, allow parking & provide space for walking and cycling.

These objectives can and do conflict.

Making a road faster for vehicles can make it less safe or attractive for pedestrians and cyclists.

Removing parking might improve walking and public space but create difficulties for those with reduced mobility or businesses in the area.

Vision Zero involves trade-offs, rather than a simple checklist.

5. Rural areas are significantly challenging.

Vision Zero approaches developed in places such as Sweden and the Netherlands cannot simply be copied onto our rural roads.

Long distances, dispersed settlements, limited public transport, agricultural traffic and dependence on cars create different challenges. A person may genuinely need a car, while still needing a safer alternative for shorter journeys.

The question becomes: how do we make the system safer without pretending everyone’s circumstances are the same?

6. Safety can conflict with sustainability

There is an important tension here. We want fewer cars, more walking and cycling and lower carbon emissions.

But if walking and cycling infrastructure is poor, asking people to leave behind their cars can simply transfer risk onto people who are more vulnerable.

That is why Vision Zero and active travel need to be considered together. We don’t just need to encourage people to walk and cycle; we need to create environments where they can do so safely.

7. Equity is complicated

Who benefits from a road intervention? Who might be disadvantaged?

A blanket restriction on vehicles might be excellent for many people but problematic for someone with mobility difficulties. A cycle lane might make cycling safer but remove a loading space used by a local business. A reduction in parking might free up land for trees and public space but affect someone who cannot use public transport.

Vision Zero will ask who is exposed to risk, who has choices, and who doesn’t.

Vision Zero connects placemaking, active travel, climate action, accessibility, public health & social justice.

A Vision Zero approach asks if the street itself makes dangerous behaviour likely. Where pedestrians and cyclists mix with heavy, fast-moving vehicles, the difference in speed and mass creates risk.

The Dutch Sustainable Safety approach (closely related to Vision Zero) seeks to separate modes where speeds are high and reduce speeds where people need to share space.

Its principles include designing roads for their intended function, reducing differences in speed and mass, making streets predictable and allocating responsibility across the system.

Speed becomes a design decision.

A 30 km/h street creates a fundamentally different environment from a 50 km/h street. It is easier to cross, more comfortable for cycling and walking, and less dominated by the movement of vehicles.

Recent research from Amsterdam found that reducing streets from 50 to 30 km/h was associated with increases in some forms of children’s cycling and adult social interaction suggesting that lower speeds can influence not only collision risk but how people use and experience streets.

The same thinking changes how we understand active travel. If we want people to walk, cycle or wheel, telling them to be more confident is not enough.

We need to create places where they can feel confident. That means connected footways and cycleways, crossings that prioritise people rather than traffic, reduced vehicle speeds, protected routes where necessary, and streets where children, older people and disabled people can move independently.

Vision Zero overlaps with the principles of good placemaking: make the safe choice the easy, attractive and obvious choice.

There is strong evidence that this approach can work. Sweden recorded 20 road deaths per million inhabitants in 2024, the lowest rate in the European Union, compared with an EU average of 45. Sweden’s current road-safety system remains explicitly based on Vision Zero, although the country has not achieved zero and still faces significant challenges, particularly serious injuries among cyclists and pedestrians.

The Netherlands provides another powerful example. Its Sustainable Safety programme contributed to an 80% fall in the road mortality rate over roughly five decades, despite population growth of 30% and a 300% increase in kilometres travelled. An evaluation of the programme found a 30% reduction in fatalities between 1998 and 2007, with estimated benefits four times greater than the costs.

Vision Zero Wales is a long-term strategy adopted by the Welsh Government with the ultimate goal of eliminating all road deaths and serious injuries. Launched formally through the Road Safety Partnership Plan for Wales in March 2026, it targets a 40% reduction in road fatalities by the year 2040.