SPARK: Unlocking Rural Road Safety and Resilience towards EU Vision Zero
HORIZON-CL5-2026-10-D6-09
The main objective of SPARK is to support local and regional authorities in reducing fatalities and serious injuries on rural roads while strengthening the resilience of rural transport networks to climate-related and emerging risks. To achieve this, SPARK will transform current road safety assessment practices into a continuous, data-driven and intelligence-led process by:
a. generating comprehensive digital intelligence on road infrastructure and operating conditions
b. leveraging behavioural and vehicle-derived data to better understand crash causation and risk factors
c. enhance the accuracy and predictive capability of Network-Wide Road Safety Assessment (NWRSA)
d. identifying and prioritising the most effective safety interven-tions
e. improving the understanding and management of climate and natural-hazard impacts on rural roads
f. enabling continuous operational safety and resilience management by road authorities.
These objectives will be achieved through six complementary innovation pillars and their associated Technology Inno-vations (TIs):
1. Digital Road Intelligence for large-scale characterisation of rural road networks, including resilience intelligence for climate and natural-hazard risk assessment and monitoring.
2. Behavioural Intelligence for understanding driving patterns, crash causation and risks.
3. Next-Generation NWRSA integrating infrastructure, behavioural and resilience intelligence.
4. Targeted Safety Interventions supporting evidence-based prioritisation of countermeasures.
5. Operational Safety Management enabling continuous, network-wide safety and resilience manage-ment.
MEMBERS
Centro de Estudios de Materiales y control de Obras S.A. (CEMOSA)
Rubiq Symvouloi Michankoi L.P
Universidade de Vigo
National Technical University Of Athens
Nira Dynamics AB
Research Driven Solutions Limited
Fundación Tecnalia Research and Innovation
AUSTRALO Alpha Lab MTU
Asociacion Centro Tecnologico CEIT
Kraj Vysočina (Vysocina Region)
Krajská správa a údržba silnic Vysočiny (Vysocina Road Maintenance A.)
VSIA Latvijas Valsts ceļi (Latvian State Roads)
The participation of Applied Geotechnologies Research Group has been partially supported by Universidade de Vigo (Axudas propias á investigación da Universidade de Vigo, convocatoria 2026).