LACROIX City consists of 120 “smart city” professionals in France and Europe helping local authorities to build the smart roads necessary to secure and streamline all types of mobility and to ensure an ecological balance for our towns and territories.
Ensuring Ecological Continuity with the LACROIX City Wildlife Pack: Example of CD 74
12 November 2020
LACROIX City
Find out how the Departmental Council has chosen to ensure ecological continuity and preserve wildlife while keeping road users safe.
Preserving Land Use Planning and Biodiversity: The “Trame Verte et Bleue”
The “Trame Verte et Bleue” is a public policy initiated in 2007 and introduced into the French Environmental Code in 2009. It aims to reduce the fragmentation of natural and semi-natural habitats by taking biodiversity into account in land use planning.
The aim is to preserve and restore an ecological network in France, made up of biodiversity reservoirs and corridors. Corridors are primarily used to ensure the movement of species between biodiversity reservoirs, whether routine, dispersal or migratory.
It is in this context that the Departmental Committee of Haute-Savoie has called on the LACROIX City Wildlife Pack solution.
Some Figures
Nationally, the accident rate from collisions with wildlife is:
- More than 60,000 accidents per year recorded in 2009 (sources: insurance companies)
- 600 hospitalisations
- 26 fatalities in 2018
- €250 million in insurance and community costs
A Road Where Ecological Issues Are Top Priority
Through the municipality of Doussard (74) runs the RD1508, a busy commuter road (15,000 vehicles per day on average). This ecological corridor features several major aspects of biodiversity:
- Site identified in the Regional Ecological Coherence Scheme (SRCE [Schéma Régional de Cohérence Écologique]) linking the Bauges Massif and La Tournette mountain crossing the RD1508.
- Nature reserve at the end of Lake Annecy, classified as a Natura 2000 area, adjoining the RD1508.
- Significant concentration of ungulates (red deer, deer, wild boar, etc.).
A Dual Objective for CD 74
The RD1508 in the municipality of Doussard is one of the department’s black spots for collisions with wildlife (70 collisions per year on average).
The challenge for CD 74 is twofold:
- Reducing accident rates along the biological corridor
- Restoring ecological continuity
The LACROIX City Solution :
- 4 detection posts monitoring animal crossings along a 700-metre stretch of the RD1508.
- 2 warning posts at both ends of the area equipped with dynamic signs that light up when the presence of animals is detected.
Benefits of the System
- Protects users from the risk of collision (demonstrating a 75% reduction in the number of collisions).
- Low-cost method of restoring and securing the continuity of biological corridors.
- Alternative to an all-fencing solution.
- No need for road users or wildlife to develop new habits in a change from traditional solutions.
- Eligible for environmental compensation measures.
- Guides planning policies based on the system’s statistics and videos.
Results
Introduced in December 2017, the wildlife pack system has proven its usefulness:
- A drastic reduction in the number of collisions: -75%, which represents a dozen collisions per year recorded in 2018 and 2019, compared to 58 collisions between January 2017 and November 2017, before the system became operational.
- A unique animal observation database consisting of detection videos, available to scientists.
In association with the Haute-Savoie Hunting Federation and an engineering design office, the system has benefitted from expert support during the equipment installation phases by locating the wildlife’s preferred crossing points along the corridor.
Since it was commissioned, the Hunting Federation has been monitoring the system in order to provide a common environmental reference resource on animal numbers visiting the site and to keep track of related mortality.
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