URBAN SAFETY MANAGEMENT: HOW TO DEAL WITH COMPLEXITY

Abstract

Urban safety management remains a field of action in cities that is unanimously considered as being a necessity as well as being difficult to apprehend in its theoretical, disciplinary and spatial dimensions. The analysis frameworks that are today consensual are based on system approaches and on analyses of the complexity of urban dynamics and dysfunctional situations. We propose a panorama of models that can be used for action and combined for effective interventions. Notably, the analysis of microregulation carried out in real time in driving situations uses psychoergonomic and cognitive psychology models, while the analysis of traffic accidents uses models developed for the more general diagnosis of safety. Macroregulation of the travel system, carried out with a time delay by network managers, should work in favor of research for consistency among the various actions on the one hand, and the various levels of intervention on space on the other. Safety actions thus require a good understanding of the cognitive models at work in public policies.