Transport for London – Cycle Safety

An engaging, interactive and informative e-learning module using 3D animation.

Look and feel

The training need

In reaction to the increasing number of cyclist deaths on the roads of the nation’s capital, Transport for London and FORS (Freight Operators Recognition Scheme), commissioned Aleido to work with them to develop and engaging, interactive and informative e-learning module to raise cycle safety awareness. The e-learning module is hosted on the FORS Online portal and will support the Safe Urban Driving (SUD) course.

The audience for this piece of e-learning is in the main, vocational drivers of vans, trucks and lorries, who have limited time and limited prior exposure to e-learning. We also had to acknowledge that there can be a degree of ill-feeling between drivers and cyclists for a variety of reasons, including an inability or reluctance to see things from the other’s perspective.

Specific requirements of the e-learning included:

Consideration had to be given to the audience’s relative experience with e-learning, as well as the fact that, for many, English is a second or even third language.

Our bespoke learning solution

Our design is focused on creating a highly engaging solution. It is very important that the learning is an enjoyable and non-threatening experience. To achieve this, we introduced a game like approach where the user is placed within a virtual, yet familiar world, which begins sat in a café having a cup of tea! The learner is soon faced with an incident involving a cyclist and a HGV, which they are able to view and experience via 3D animated footage from differing points of view – the cyclist, the lorry driver and CCTV. The learner then assesses what went wrong by ‘interviewing’ the two protagonists, by selecting and reading relevant parts of the Highway Code and by answering interactive questions. They then ‘report’ to the policeman present, how the incident could and should have been avoided.

By beginning and ending the narrative part of the e-learning in the café, we help to tie the threads together and conclude the ‘story’. We also use a newspaper article to provide a ‘positive spin’: a good news cycle safety story as featured in the video at the start of the module… it’s as if nothing has happened. With empathy and consideration, our characters will share the roads happily ever after…

What the customer had to say

The FORS team is delighted at the way fleet operators have embraced this learning. To date, 9,500 have attended the Safe Urban Driving workshop with its practical element of getting drivers out on bicycles to experience London’s roads from a cyclist’s perspective and 528 have undertaken the e-learning since it was launched at the end of January 2014.