HikeSafe: Innovative approaches to accident prevention in hiking (Innosuisse)

Hiking is very popular in Switzerland and has a positive effect on health, but it also involves risks. Every year, more than 25,000 people have accidents while hiking, and some of them suffer serious or even fatal injuries. It happens again and again that hikers are overtaxed. The mismatch of individual requirements on the one hand and the demands of a trail on the other hand increases the risk of injury. mismatch, increases the probability of an accident. In order to reduce the mismatch and thus prevent accidents, we would like to take a new and innovative approach to prevention in this project. We would like to address hikers no longer only through traditional approaches (e.g. campaigns, information brochures), but also use current technological possibilities. Therefore, we will develop three innovative web applications to help reduce mismatch: a trail app for standardized recording of safety-relevant features of hiking trails, a hiker app for self-assessment of one's own abilities, and a matching app that combines the other two apps and makes suitable hiking suggestions based on the self-assessment. Parallel to the development of these tools, the existing network of partner organizations in the field of hiking will be expanded. These partners will be involved in the development of the tools from the beginning. This way we can ensure that the tools will be widely accepted and used later on. Our goal is to have a prototype (technology maturity level TRL 4-6) of the web applications available at the end of the project that can be used by partner organizations and other interested parties. The data and source codes should be accessible as "OpenData" as far as possible in order to be used and further developed. They should be able to be integrated into existing websites and platforms.