Transport Accident Commission – Road to Zero

A key design challenge for us was how to create a solution that’s deeply engaging and empowers secondary school students with the knowledge and motivation to play their part in improving road safety, while being sensitive to the serious issue of reducing deaths on the road. Each experience required very specific educational outcomes backed by road scientists and human behaviour specialists, but needed to appeal to an apathetic 15-16 year old target audience. How do you make an educational experience about road deaths engaging and memorable, without making light of the situation or using outdated negative shock tactics?

We designed 15 interactive and immersive experiences for the Road to Zero Education Complex, working closely with road engineers, behavioural scientists, teachers, students, educational experts and researchers. Experiences included: reframing thinking about speed and impact by dropping an elevator from 11 stories high (the equivalent of crashing at 100 km/hr); understanding the impact our road systems have on safety by planning a city and re-engineering roads; a VR experience imagining a future of zero road deaths and injuries by driving through time from the 70s to the near future, to witness the evolution of our roads and vehicles.

The impact of the exhibition cannot be understated as it serves to change a generation of Victorians and save hundreds of avoidable deaths on the road each year. The exhibition has been applauded by educators, students and government bodies and will continue to develop as technologies and behaviours change over the life of the 10-year exhibition. Since launching, over 4,000 secondary school students and teachers have participated in a Road to Zero program. 55,000 people have visited the exhibition (exceeding KPI annual target of 30,000), and 3,400 young people (and families) have participated in the holiday program.

All of the 15+ digital experiences in the exhibition are integrated with an NFC band to initiate and collect content to be accessible later via a custom-built website. The website provides targeted educational resources, based on a student’s age to help them find appropriate cars, get access to driving lessons and better understand road rules that affect them. Adjacent to the experience centre is the Learning Studio where we developed touch-table interactives for Health and Science students to work in small groups, create their own vehicle safety video campaigns and learn about the physics of stopping distances using VR headsets. A custom touchscreen video editor, along with hundreds of live action safety scenarios, were crafted for students to piece together their own safety campaign and share it with their class and friends.