INRETS the French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research was created in 1985. It is a state-financed scientific and technological body under the dual administrative supervision of the Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Transport.

INRETS has the following tasks: To organize, execute and assess technological research and development concerned with the improvement of the means and systems of transport and of traffic from technical, economic and social viewpoints. To carry out evaluative and advisory studies within these domains. To promote the results of these research and study programme, to contribute to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, and participate in training by and for transport research both in France and abroad.

Four key issues, including interdisciplinary projects, are at the heart of INRETS' research capabilities and expertise for the 2001- 2004 period: road safety, driving aids, transports networks and services, transport and environmental protection.

The INRETS Department of Accident Mechanisms analysis (MA) is a multi-disciplinary unit essentially devoted to road safety. More precisely, in conducting an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms at the origin of accidents, the processes of failure of the traffic system. INRETS-MA requires the contributions from several disciplines, such as psychology, vehicle engineering, infrastructure engineering. Research in progress at MA includes human aspects involved in road accidents, behavioural analysis of the vehicle and of the vehicle-driver couple in real use and in emergency situation, the analysis of unsafety on road networks, the integration of safety in urban design, the experimental analysis of perceptive and cognitive functions involved in driving activity, and the various expertise in the field of road safety.

Pierre Van Elslande is the INRETS’ representative. With a Psychology (Cognitive and Ergonomics) PhD background, Pierre Van Elslande has been a Researcher at INRETS-MA since 1985. He is in charge of the In-depth Accident Study (EDA) conducted in this Institute. His main research paradigm consists in taking advantage of in-depth accident data, considered as symptomatic of drivers' functional failures which can be explained by contextual factors (system malfunctions) and as revealing the needs in countermeasures aimed at compensating these failures. His main research topics include human "error" and its factors, cognitive analysis of road system malfunctions under the angle of drivers' knowledge structures and processes (representation, categorisation, anticipation, etc.), analysis of aid driver needs and a priori evaluation of driving aid devices adequacy. He has published more than 50 papers on these different topics.