Traffic Psychology Research Unit was born in December 2007 in the Psychology Department of the Catholic University of Milan, gathers  skills and techniques from researchers of various fields of psychology: cognitive, developmental, communication and psychology of traumatic events.

The group is committed to making its research findings accessible, applicable, and available to a wide range of organizations and individuals. Using various research approaches, the Unit works:

• to promote research on Traffic Psychology
• to empower education, training and prevention
• to propose conferences and seminars

Topics of research

• Human Factor and Driver Behavior:
  • role of emotions
  • decision making
  •  risk perception
• Assessment of driver skills
• Human-Intelligent Transportation System technologies interaction
• Young driver training
• Sustainable safety

The unit, on the basis of the specific expertise on the Human Factor, addresses different goals:

1. Research aimed at achieving an in-depth understanding of cognitive, perceptive and motivational processes underlying the behavior of the different users of the transport system.
2. Designing training programs on safety and sustainability issues in many contexts, such as schools, driving schools, companies and road safety operators.
3. Evaluation of the effectiveness of road users’ safety trainings. In both training and effectiveness assessment, we use different methodologies and tools, from more traditional ones to the most innovative, such as software and app.
4. Consultancy regarding communication strategies to foster change towards a greater sustainability.
5. Consulting services regarding the development of training tools, vehicles and infrastructures.
6. Fitness to drive assessment: following years of research aimed to find good practices, methodologies and tools for the assessment of the psychological fitness to drive, since 2015the Service for assessment, empowerment and diagnosis of psychological driving requirements (S.V.E.G. Psi) also features among the activities of the Research Unit. Such service provides professional assessment related to the driving requirements qualification for many different road users, such as elderly drivers, drivers with neuropsychological disease, substances abuse, psychiatric diagnoses, young drivers with cognitive deficits.

Within the wider topic of the relationship between mobility and well-being, the main research areas are:

• risk and hazard perception;
• cognitive processes underlying road users’ behaviour (particularly drivers and pedestrians);
• influence of emotions on driving behaviour;
• motivation underlying the use of different means of transportation and sustainable mobility;
• human-vehicle interaction and acceptance of the new technologies;
• inclusive mobility;
• best practices for fitness-to-drive assessment.

Contacts: federica.biassoni@unicatt.it