Design, implementation, maintenance, evaluation, extension and improvement of the Children’s Traffic Circuit at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Cheste, which was running for nine years (from September 2000 to June 2009). The PIT, owned by Iniciativas de Educación y Seguridad Vial (Education and road safety initiatives) has been sponsored by different companies and entities among which the Valencian Provincial Council stands out.

Within the context of road safety education, Children’s Traffic Circuits have proved to be a differentiating and essential tool, as they allow children and young people to face similar situations as the real ones in a context of controlled risk. Moreover, they provide their users the necessary practical means to integrate and contextualise knowledge and appropriate and safe behaviours. These Circuits are, in short, a complementary educative activity for “regulated” Road Safety Education, considered by the L.O.G.S.E for different stages: nursery school, primary education and compulsory secondary education.

In response to the social demand for traffic accidents’ prevention, and because of the reasons explained above, INICIATIVAS DE EDUCACIÓN VIAL, S.L. launched in September 2000 the Children’s Traffic Circuit at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, where a programme of Road Safety Education aimed at 8-year-old to 16-year-old Valencian people, in order to start a preventive training on traffic and circulation and to teach nowadays’ pedestrians and future drivers, has been developed for nine years.

This circuit was designed thinking in its location, the Valencian Community’s Ricardo Tormo Circuit. With an undeniable educational value added, when the students go to the circuit, they are told about the safety characteristics of the circuit, the professionalism of drivers, the safety measures of drivers and why they cannot do on the streets what the drivers do in the circuit.

The fascination of children, young people and adults on these facilities, jointly with the appeal of all the activities developed during the day, makes possible for the students to remember all the explanations and lessons.

With an area of 21’200 m2, the circuit has three parts: the area called “The Street” is 5’220 m2 and simulates an urban area with all kinds of signaling, horizontal, vertical, traffic lights, etc. The area called “The Track” occupies 6’800m2 and is a 1:8 scale replica of the Ricardo Tormo Circuit, in this area students can drive with a sort of F1 karts that, logically, have limited speed. The area called “Tent” is a tent of 400m2 where 100m2 are used as repair shop, and the other 300m2 as dining room. This dining area is used, after finishing the activity, as a garage for the 70 bicycles, 12 F1 karts, 16 road safety education karts and 14 motorbikes. The rest functions as parking and recreation area, occupying an approximate area of 4’723m2.

The Briefing room and the Press room of the Circuit are used as classrooms during the early years, logically, the use of these rooms was coordinated with the needs of the circuit, there theory lessons aided by transparency slides, and later by audio-visual systems, were taught. In the past two years the use of these rooms was not allowed anymore and the CAT (Centre for Technological Support) of the UPV was asked for help to provide us their classroom, to what they accepted disinterestedly. We want to use this opportunity to express our gratitude.

The activity carried out has these aims: a) The acquisition of a set of basic knowledge related to Road Safety through activities that, as different road users, will be simulated in the different phases of the programme; b) the acquisition of a set of basic skills, among which observation habits, decision, psychomotor activity and anticipating the risk stand out; c) the acquisition of a set of habits of regulations conduct as pedestrians or drivers of different of vehicles, appropriate to the physical and psychological characteristics of each age group; d) the acquisition of traffic safety attitudes and values. In brief, the project will be based on the consideration of Road Safety Education as Education for Road Safety, Education for Health and, therefore, EDUCATION FOR LIFE.

Regarding the educational programme the day at the Children’s Traffic Circuit is presented as a theoretical and practical activity in the field of Road Safety, within the institutionalised framework of Road Safety Education, a crosscut topic of LOGSE. This programme is called YO APRENDO CON LOS “GRANDES” (I learn with the “big ones”) and it is specially designed for this Circuit and it focuses in four age groups: Group I: 3rd and 4th course Primary Education, Group II: 5th and 6th course Primary Education, Group III: 1st and 2nd course E.S.O., Group IV: 3rd and 4th E.S.O.

This division allows, besides respecting the evolution differences depending on the age, taking into account a fundamental premise within Road Safety Education: it has to be a continuous process in time. With this division it is possible to make a complete training cycle, enabling the student to level up every two years.

The activities carried out during the day are divided mainly into three parts: Presentation (this activity will fulfil the aim of making the first contact between the students and the Circuit’s staff –Welcoming and presentation of activities, general and specific rules of the Circuit, distribution of groups and instructors-), theory part (students will learn basic Road Safety concepts in the classrooms. The aim of this activity is to transmit basic Road Safety concepts to the participants, emphasising in each group the most common risk behaviours of their age and the most appropriate road conducts –pedestrian, cyclist, moped driver…-), visit to “Ricardo Tormo” circuit (during the tour the functioning of the safety systems available in racing circuits will be explained in more or less detail, depending on the age of the groups) and the practice part (this will be developed in two areas “La Calle” –the aim is to teach children and young people appropriate behaviours towards different regulations and signals, acting as pedestrians and drivers of different vehicles depending on the age groups- and “La Pista” –this allows to differentiate clearly between driving in an urban road and in a race circuit, which also has its rules and appropriate safety measures for the activity developed-). At the end of the day, a brief summary and a card will be handed to the students.

From the third year the Circuit has been kept to 100% of its capacity, this attendance is around 11’000 students and 860 teachers annually, from the whole Valencian Community. The situation is such that from that year there have been education centres that have not been able to do the activity in previous courses, an increase of students with the means and facilities that there are will work against the quality of the service.

In the past nine courses, the assessment and gratitude from the centres participating are excellent, that can be proved by the demand for visits that arrive every year and by the media coverage of the activity.

In 2004 it got the quality certificate according to the Regulation UNE EN ISO 9001:2000, certification by ENAC and UKAS QUALITY MANAGEMENT, being the audit firm BVQI.

The tasks performed by the members of the research group, given its long existence, have been several, some of initial character and other of continuous character. Initially, PIT’s educational programme was developed, the training of instructors was made and its promotion activities were developed, among which there were the development of a presentation video and a public communication campaign. Along these years we have kept selecting instructors in order to cover the different vacancies that have occurred, we have also kept training new instructors, doing continuous and recycling training for the staff, continuous assessment of the programme, its adaptations and modification has been done depending on the results obtained and the modifications regulated that have been happening.

Development and innovation

Iniciativas de educación y seguridad vial