On 28 – 29th of October 2014, the Automobile Club of Moldova organized in Chisinau the launch event of the South East Neighborhood Safe Routes (SENSOR) project in Moldova.

The SENSOR project builds on outstanding cooperation between automobile clubs, universities and road authorities and it is co-financed by the European Union and the South East Europe (SEE) Transnational Cooperation Programme. This is a unique tool within the Territorial Cooperation Objective Regional Policy, aimed to improve integration and competitiveness of a complex and diverse area. South East Europe program supports the development of partnerships in areas of strategic importance to improve the process of territorial, economic and social cohesion and contribute to the stability and competitiveness of the region. In this context, it aims to achieve high quality projects, oriented on strategic results, relevant for the program area.

The basic aim of the SENSOR project is to raise the overall level of safety performance of busy roads in the SEE region.

SENSOR project brings together 14 countries - Greece, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine.

Mrs. Virginia Mandalac, manager of this project in Moldova opened the session by welcoming the participants and presenting general info regarding SENSOR project Moldova.

The event was attended by local authorities, as Deputy Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure, the State Road Administration, Secretary General of the National Road Safety Council and other representatives of institutions involved in road construction and audit in Moldova. The Deputy Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure of Moldova, Mr. Boris Gherasim described the actual situation of Moldovan roads.  The Secretary General of National Road Safety Council, Mr. Viorel Bulimaga underlined the main ideas of National Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan, as well as other representatives from the SRA and “Universinj” LTD spoke about traffic calming in villages, which is a big problem for our country, taking into account that the majority of national roads cross villages.

The launch event was followed by the “RAP Inspection & Safety Ranking” training workshop, organized for local road engineers and carried out by experienced external experts Dr. Steve Lawson Road Safety Foundation Research Director and Stelios Efstathiadis Head Engineer Transportation Solutions.

The workshop included: introduction to RAP, Star Rating, Safer Roads Investment Plans and RAP capacity, Accessing results through ViDA, introduction to road coding, star rating analysis and reporting tutorial.

Please visit project’s webpage www.sensorproject.eu for more information about SENSOR.