Road traffic safety represents one of the most perplexing dilemmas for modern man. On the one hand, the invention of the automobile has undoubtedly contributed to the exponential growth of civilization achieved in this century. On the other hand, this invention had introduced massive undesirable side effects, among the most notable of which are noise and air pollution. From the public health viewpoint, road traffic accidents are among the leading causes of deaths in advanced countries, in addition to causing vast amounts of disability. 

Recognizing these problems, the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization sought to initiate a research effort aimed at ameliorating some of them. The Austrian Government, noting the high rate of road accidents in Austria, was also keenly interested. It was thus agreed that the IIASA Bio-Medical Project and the Austrian Kuratorium fuer Verkehrssicherheit would carry out such a study in cooperation with WHO. This workshop was organized in order to discuss the overall traffic safety efforts currently underway in Europe and to point out some open areas of research in which the system-analytic approach may be useful. It is anticipated that this will be the first step in a long-term research effort, possibly funded by WHO.