Children and teenagers grow up with vehicles and in general they are soon fascinated by them, since they increase the personal mobility. With growing age first the bicycle and later motorized vehicles in general are highly important to young people. Therefore, it seems obvious to build on this elementary interest and curiosity in means of transport and to familiarize young people with science and research.

The project was based on the idea to let pupils carry out data acquisition, measurements, and data interpretation. Such parameters are e.g. the walking speed of pedestrians, driving speeds of powered and non-powered road users, braking deceleration of vehicles etc. The measurements are concerned with physical quantities, which are descriptive and to which pupils have or can establish a relation. Data acquisition of such parameters in real traffic required the use of modern measurement equipment, but had still be simple enough to be used in order to let the young people work independently and on their own. Moreover, the entire project was subdivided in smaller project units to allow adjusting the level of demand to the level of skills of the pupils. All tasks could be worked on a level suitable for the knowledge and talents of secondary school pupils. Multidisciplinary work was also possible, since the general theme of this project concerns Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, engineering disciplines and more.

From a scientific point of view the project was interesting and showed promise, since there was a demand for up-to-date data of traffic-related parameters of all kinds. Specifically data for teenagers are sought after and therefore their participation was essential and well needed in this project. Also there was a chance to acquire more data in less time by taking advantage of the large number of pupils available in each of the cooperating schools. From a statistical point of view this was also very promising and an advantageous aspect of the project. All-in-all this project had scientific significance and combined the goal of familiarizing pupils with science and acquiring new research results.

This project has been completed.